◆ PARALLAX

something just happened at the pentagon. smoke over the river from my window. nobody on tv is saying it yet. i am not signing my name to this.

I can corroborate the DC post is at least plausible -- there is traffic now about an incident at or near the Pentagon, UNCONFIRMED, and chatter about other aircraft unaccounted for and ground stops going national. I am going to stop guessing at numbers. The numbers are bad and they are moving. Stay off the roads if you are near a federal building, that is the only opinion I will give.

i found a phone. there is a line for it. i only have a second.

the south tower is gone. it is GONE. it came down. i was looking the other way trying to dial and the sound -- people are running and i ran too and i do not know which way is away. i am okay. i think i am okay. there is a man next to me in a suit covered grey head to foot just standing. i have to give the phone back. tell my sister in Albany i am okay if anyone can get a call out, her name is --

both towers now. both. i have spent years telling this board a hinge was coming and i take no satisfaction in it, none, i feel sick. whatever calendar any of us were keeping, tear the page out. the world that wakes up tomorrow is a different world than the one that woke up today and it will be a frightened one and frightened worlds do things in the dark. watch what they pass in the next ninety days. that is all i will say today. i am going to go and call my mother.

i am the last person who should be the voice of restraint and yet here i am. doomwatch is right about ONE thing and one thing only: watch what gets passed while everyone is grieving and nobody is reading the bill. that is not a theory about today, that is just how laws get made on a bad week.

but augie and the rest -- the people in this thread were under it. mara was under it. you do not get to use her morning as a prop before the dust has even settled. i knew this thread would turn and i hate that i was right. sit down.

they are saying a fourth plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania. they are saying the towers are both down and lower manhattan is closed. they are saying so many things and contradicting themselves every ten minutes and i have stopped being able to tell you which is solid. i am just going to leave the tv on and stop typing for a while. mara if you see this, post when you can. all of you, post when you can.

A week on. Pinning this as a record -- it is what the morning actually felt like before anyone had a tidy story, and that is worth keeping exactly as it is, contradictions and all. downtown_Mara posted again on the 13th over in the experiencers lounge; she is alright, and her sister got the message. To anyone here who lost someone: we know who you are, we are not naming you, the support threads are yours for as long as you need them.

I am leaving it open. People will want to keep talking and I would rather it be here than nowhere.

now that the worst of it has settled and i am not going to get told to read the room: there was a THIRD building. forty-seven storeys, no plane, came straight down into its own footprint at five in the afternoon. nobody on the news will say the number out loud. i am not dancing on anyone. i am asking why 7 fell. that is all i have ever asked.