explosions

Today work was busy. I wasn't as bored as I often am, which is good. I left a 6 and walked over to Park Ave to get the 6 train downtown. What I saw looked something like this: I'm not sure how to describe how I felt to someone who wasn't in New York on September 11. Today I didn't experience the same shocked numbness that I did then. Today I felt very, very afraid. Today I felt like I wasn't going to make it home and see Christopher again. Not only that, I didn't think my phone would work if I tried calling. I felt very alone.

I started to cry, right there on the sidewalk. Of course, I wasn't the only one. Everywhere around me people looked blankly shocked and concerned. We stared north towards Grand Central Station and the smoke. We watched the fire engines and police cars whiz by. Traffic wasn't moving. Neither were the pedestrians.

I called Christopher. The phone rang. He answered rather cheerfully. I sobbed. I told him about the smoke I was seeing, the fire engines that I'm sure he could hear. He looked on the internet to see what they said, but there was nothing. I felt lost. He told me to take the Q home instead of the 6, since the Q doesn't go near Grand Central. I got off the phone and, armed with my plan, headed towards the Q. The explosion turned out to be a pipe on 41st and Lexington, and one person was killed. Of course, the smoke and the sirens awakened in me (and everyone else on Park Ave) an extreme fear and sadness that seems to lie just below the surface of so many New Yorkers.

The New York Times has a few articles on what happened, and a little photo essay of the events. One of the photos shows a group on cell phones and just behind them is a couple. The man looks completely shocked and emotionless, and the woman is clearly crying as she rests her head on his shoulder. That's how I feel. Only now that I'm not on Park Ave, I've put the emotions back under the surface and I'm trying to ignore them again.