September 10, 2002 - 1:47 PM
It's weird in the city today. Even though we're thousands upon thousands of miles and a day off a full year away from Ground Zero, we feel it here too in Melbourne. We look to our Rialto Towers, though nowhere near as tall as the WTC towers were, and suddenly we feel pensive apprehension.
I am not heartless. I was upset by it. I freaked and wrote furious panicky emails and messages to friends just to get word that they were ok - even if they were in a completely different state, I needed to know.
It's like everyone is holding their breath as the countdown to tomorrow morning continues.
No one says anything though. We feel stupid. We want to talk about it and we don't want to talk about it. We want to watch the shocking scenes on the television, and then we don't at the same time. I find myself still cringing when those videos are played over and over and over again on the television. But the morbid fascination is still shamelessly there.
It's no different from any other devastation, but it's also so shocking because while I know it happens overseas, I don't see it. You don't see it as it happens. You don't read transcripts of the last phone call between a woman on one of the planes and her mother, or a husband to his wife, or a brother to a brother. You don't watch videos of people falling from a burning building or tapes of people screaming "Oh no!" when they see those who chose to jump falling to their deaths.
All those other tragedies happen and you see them after the fact. I'm so used to seeing it and hearing about it that I've become desensitised - and it's purely because you don't see it to the same extent that we saw 9/11 and continued to see it to this day and will probably continue seeing it over and over and over again for a long time to come.
And I'll continue to hold my breath as the moment of impact comes and passes.
Sarah Bunting's account of the events... first hand... is harrowing.
