remembering

A million words have been said today about anniversaries, and evil, retribution and grief.

Five years ago today I was at work, at the concrete house of junk mail, coming in from an early lunch I think. Everyone was gathered around the tv at the far end of the studio (rafts of macs where the designers sat) and I thought the Queen Mother had finally popped her clogs. So I made some crass joke, which I don't remember now, and sauntered over to have a look. And found myself looking at burning buildings and the ashen faces of my colleagues, seconds before the second plane rammed in to the other tower.

I told my mum, she was at work, I got frustrated by the fact she wouldn't, couldn't, understand what i was on about.

I emailed my friend in NYC and made some token trite gesture, hoping he'd reply and therefore be ok.
He did. Didn't say much, understandably.

And now i live here, where there are so many religions who tolerate and accept. We're about to go into the holy month of ramadan, where offices change their hours and my colleagues will stay up till dawn and go home at three pm, and that's ok. During the evening, us infidels can still frequent the bars, though we're asked not to dance, and there's no live music. At the end of it all comes Eid, and we'll all celebrate together.

But its not about religion, is it. It's about hate, and money, whether or not it was a conspiracy, it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

So, I'm remembering, and I hope there's lots of people thinking about that shocking moment where we watched those iconic towers fall, in the first attack on mainland america since pearl harbour, and the thousands and thousands of innocent victims this region has buried since that day.