An Image In a Dark Stairwell, On a Long Runway

It seemed as if it would not be possible to let this go until the
images stopped running in my head... and that would not be possible until I could reduce the whole thing... the entire thing... (the pentagon, the four planes, the north tower, the south tower, the people jumping, the towers falling, the firemen, the pilots with throats slashed)... the whole thing had to come down to one image... and it had to be a Good one for me to move on. It had to be an image that captured the voice of God amidst the wreckage.

Finally, after about 2 weeks was I finally able to construct the image... and where the image occurred... and to write about it... and, finally, to call ONLY on that ONE image whenever I was reminded of this...

An Image In a Dark Stairwell, On a Long Runway

You could float at the base of the World Trade Center. Their cross sections were not square: they were in the shape of a square with the four corners cut off. And the towers came straight down to the ground with no pedestal to stand on.

So you could literally walk right up to each tower; you could put your chest up against the shaved-off wide, flat surface of what was the corner, tilt your head way back, and feel like you were standing on the edge of a huge runway. God! what a powerful feeling that was! The effect of standing up and having your head at an angle gave this feeling of weightlessness while standing on a runway that went on forever; it was as if any moment you would lift off and begin your ascent into the heavens.

My mind keeps returning to that day; and just when my heart stops palpitating, and I can stop sweating, can I sublimate the horror of being on one of those four planes; of being that pilot or that passenger. I can relax, just for a moment, move on, look up from my computer and (here it comes again) face the image of being in an office and seeing a jet coming at me at 600 miles per hour. And I can only thank God I am not that stewardess, that pilot, that passenger or that office worker. I am just me; I am grateful that I was where I was on 9/11 and I feel such pain for all those who were there; and for all those whose loved ones were there.

And just when I finally "let that image go", I see, next, the people standing on the ledge of the building... jumping... just jumping. The news images do not even capture the sound. Were they screaming? I imagine myself falling back down the runway just like them, and I still do not know if they were screaming. And I never will. And I never should.

And when I can finally let that go, I imagine, this time now, those left up on the building top, and I feel his majesty lean slowly to the side; and once again come screams of the twisting steel as those people now begin their scene, careening down the runway, accompanied by glass
and metal and concrete. For here it comes again. When will the images go away?

And, as irrelevant as it may seem, comes the image of a squirrel, minding its own business in WTC square, oblivious to stock options, the Middle East, and all our problems... mildly wondering... "geez, wad' is 'dat noize I hear", as it picks up a breadcrumb, looks up, and is smashed into oblivion by over a million tons of steel and concrete indifferent to squirrels and flower beds.

I suppose this is part of what that horror was to me. The inability to linger even for a second on one small minutiae of that day. It feels like a Spielberg Movie on MethAmphetamine: speeding and careening from one horror to the next faster than a jet plane on a runway during takeoff.
But I finally come to rest back in my childhood.

I recall visiting the firehouses in the Bronx. I imagine every kid in this nation at one time or other voicing the words: "I want to be a fireman". And at this point, my memory races with my imagination and tries to complete a story that never came true because, frankly, I do not know if I could ever have the courage as those men who went right back in. I can only say that their stories were not captured on camera (thank God! I do not have to see courage played out on the six O'clock
news to constantly remind myself how much more work lies ahead of me to be like them). Only those last few people who did not make it out, holding the hand of the firemen who went back in, and looking into each other's eyes -- those people knew the courage of the firemen, and in that flicker of an eye, in that moment that lasted an eternity as they held their breath, amidst a noise so loud you could hear a pin drop --
did they become one with the same courage as they began racing up a runway that was racing back down on them (greeting those coming down and lifting them back up).

It happens now, you see. So many childhood memories now culminate in that day. So many memories are getting an ending I never could have imagined.

I have this memory of being a child and taking photographs with visiting uncles from another country, while standing on a Ferry, with The Lady on the left and the Twin Towers in front of us. I see the pictures standing there in my mind as my mind races forward in time, now, and eclipses twenty years faster than the buildings crush down on the secretaries, the janitors, the single parents, the pigeon or whatever squirrel just happened to be there at the wrong time. For I can no longer linger in memory of being at those buildings without being fully aware of their ultimate fate.

I know I will go back to NY again this Christmas. I know I will get lost in the lower city like I usually do these years: it has been a long time since I have lived there. Only this time I know I will not be able to look up and figure out where I am because those two towers will not be there to help me by saying: "that is where you are right now (and you still have a long way to go)".

I know the space will be there. But the ashes will be gone by the time I get there. I can imagine the ashes. But what is the point? They will all have blown away in the wind. I suppose that is good.

For in time what will remain will not be the ashes, or the concrete or the twisted steel. In time, one day, my mind will actually be able to flicker from the horror and play the images at speeds far in excess of 600 miles per hour, without the pain, and move past the airplanes, the secretaries, the squirrel and, I suppose, the firemen. For of all the racing on that day, the descents and ascents will be still in comparison to that one moment when humanity embraced. I hope in time
I will come to dwell on that moment of the embrace and that look when their eyes might have met: the fireman and that person in the darkness of a stairwell; when they heard the rumble coming for them. I suppose then I will be able to see that one pivotal moment when eternity became real in the body of two people becoming one at the moment. And at that
moment when memory and imagination become one and I get this dejaVu feeling that I am imagining a memory (or remembering an imagination), will all the pain of that moment be supplanted by a vision of what we are all capable of being; at that time, maybe the wound will heal.

We will have moved on; some will have married, others have will have found others; children will be born; others of us will have died taking some memory with us.

And, in time, when I do recall that day amidst the noise: the roar of the engines, the ignition of jet fuel, the racing of my heart -- as my plane takes off from San Diego on my way back to NY at Christmas -- may I hear instead, something much quieter (because the beauty of this sound is softer than the unfolding petals of a rose or the opening arms of an angel beckoning a new arrival). I suppose if I had the strength
of character, I could hear it even now from 3000 miles away as the cranes lift the last concrete blocks and the remaining steel beams slide past one another. It is the voice of humanity holding two people tight in an embrace of a Compassioned Human Love stronger than any thing we know. This voice needs no words as one million tons of metal
softly dissolves into the earth beneath; This voice needs no words as two spirits roar up a runway on its magnificent ascent into heaven. This voice sees this catastrophe as just dust in the wind. This voice, today, might only be heard by a lady, in a harbor, holding her breath, and waiting for the day when we all hear that same voice beckoning us to recognize the Fireman that is possible in each one of us.

submitted on 10-06-2001 by
Tom Impelluso