No thing beside

No thing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

“Ozymandias”, Percy Bysshe Shelley

I never turned on the TV, but for some reason that morning I did. A small plane was sticking out of the side of the North Tower. I was living two miles away. I ran to get you from your yoga class as the towers were falling. The lady in the supermarket asked me: Is it the end? Three thousand people gone. In an hour or so. I remember the look on Bush’s face when he was told the news; he was reading a picture book to some pre-schoolers. I remember how hundreds of firemen, lugging their hoses, were sent up the stairwells to their deaths. I remember how, with the firestorm raging below, office workers made their way to the roof, and, hand in hand, jumped. I remember that people in wheelchairs were abandoned when the lifts stopped working. I remember, for days afterwards, the hundreds of flyers everywhere: Have you seen my father? My sister? Do you know if - ? Call this number – Please, someone –

I cannot rant. I am a trivial person. This is what I remember.