tuesday september 11 2001    |    1:21 p.m.

oh god.

read these.

for hours manhattan was a cloud of solid smoke.

last spring on a cold morning i sat on a bench across from the world trade center with a cup of scalding dunkin donuts coffee and just kept looking up and up at the towers, and across the street to the hotel, and the chapel, the almost-too-beautiful lines of the buildings against the sky.

now on tv new york looks like . . . i don't know. not real.

now what . . .?

1:53 p.m.

this morning some people got up. took showers. kissed their families good morning. grabbed coffee on the street, maybe walked, maybe took the bus from brooklyn, the subway. walked to work. minutes later jumped to their deaths because their bodies were on fire.

it was on television. on fucking television. freefall.

i don't know what to say. god help us all. really. what is there to say.