Terror
Two years ago today I was working at this health-food joint/ juice bar in Syracuse. There wasn’t a television in the store. So when a co-worker came frantically running in with digital pictures he had taken off of his TV at home of the billows of smoke rising from the twin towers, I honestly thought he was joking. We all rushed out into the main part of the mini-mall to watch CNN on the screens hanging from the ceilings in the dining area.
I obviously don’t need to explain what I saw. We all saw it over and over and over again. It strikes me that in order for this event to be accepted as a reality, many of us - even people who witnessed it firsthand as they ran out of the buildings, or watched from a Hoboken rooftop, or from the very street it was on, needed to see it again and again on their televisions. We needed to see it from different angles, in different lighting, with different news castor’s saying “oh my god, oh my god…” No one put that on their cue cards. We just couldn’t believe it…and we couldn’t tear ourselves away from that image. I stayed up until 4 am and must have seen the attack over a hundred times that night and morning. It reminds me of the Kennedy assassination. We watch these things again and again hoping, even expecting something to change - some minor detail that was overlooked that could bring light and understanding. We analyze it; learn its characteristics like the lyrics of a song. “Here’s the part where the explosion shoots out the other side…” “Here’s the part where Jackie reaches for him…” Maybe the truth is that television has become more of a reality than our real lives. We need it to address our insecurities. We need it because it seems we've learned not to trust ourselves, and it verifies that something actually happened.
The headlines today read, “U.S. Says 'Major Terror Attack' May Come Today”. This isn’t the world I was promised. I want a refund on the 20 years I spent preparing for “real life”. I thought all I needed to be concerned with was graduating from college and finding someone to love me. This is a dangerous new landscape.
They are playing the loop again on the television. It isn’t bringing me any solace.
I obviously don’t need to explain what I saw. We all saw it over and over and over again. It strikes me that in order for this event to be accepted as a reality, many of us - even people who witnessed it firsthand as they ran out of the buildings, or watched from a Hoboken rooftop, or from the very street it was on, needed to see it again and again on their televisions. We needed to see it from different angles, in different lighting, with different news castor’s saying “oh my god, oh my god…” No one put that on their cue cards. We just couldn’t believe it…and we couldn’t tear ourselves away from that image. I stayed up until 4 am and must have seen the attack over a hundred times that night and morning. It reminds me of the Kennedy assassination. We watch these things again and again hoping, even expecting something to change - some minor detail that was overlooked that could bring light and understanding. We analyze it; learn its characteristics like the lyrics of a song. “Here’s the part where the explosion shoots out the other side…” “Here’s the part where Jackie reaches for him…” Maybe the truth is that television has become more of a reality than our real lives. We need it to address our insecurities. We need it because it seems we've learned not to trust ourselves, and it verifies that something actually happened.
The headlines today read, “U.S. Says 'Major Terror Attack' May Come Today”. This isn’t the world I was promised. I want a refund on the 20 years I spent preparing for “real life”. I thought all I needed to be concerned with was graduating from college and finding someone to love me. This is a dangerous new landscape.
They are playing the loop again on the television. It isn’t bringing me any solace.
posted by Joshua Oshua at 4:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home