STILL GONE

“You can’t change the past but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future”

- Anonymous quote on a tea bag label

I recall an old college buddy’s candid observations from what is now 19 years ago. He spoke of the bizarre reality of a plane crashed into the idyllic morning of downtown New York City. How when the planes hit that body parts rained down onto the streets and sidewalks.

He described the realization that the buildings were falling. That too many had come too close, including himself. As the towers fell, people raced over one another to get away in sheer animal-like panic.

He described how those he passed-by in that mad scramble did not make it. When the debris hit, filling the air with the dust many would carry in their exodus out of the city, later on, it was like putting your face in the sand and attempting to take deep breaths.

The dust was thick and choking, and those panicked and bewildered survivors found it impossible to get even breath for what seemed an eternity. Imagine escaping that crazed lunacy of the buildings falling only to feel that you are now suffocating, covered in that white miasma.

He walked in a dull shock along with so many others, crossing the bridge into Brooklyn. His visage can be seen from in some newspaper photo, his girlfriend holding a just as…