Friday, 21 September 2001 | Questions

It's almost too easy for me to target my anger at one source, and maybe that's a common problem. Maybe we're all pointing fingers, perhaps with the understanding that assigning blame is complicated, yet we're still unable to focus on more than one culprit, the only difference being whom we choose to focus on. Some of us realize that the U.S. isn't guilt-free but learn to overlook those sins with the replaying of the flowering of fire, the loss of thousands of lives simultaneously.

Lately I've been doing just the opposite, allowing the events that happened just over a week ago to become fuzzy, and, instead, focusing on the failures of my government and what brought us to this point. I don't know if it's because I want to find solutions, or if I'm so used to feeling like I have the minority opinion that I'm actually unable to join the majority. In any case, I'm sorry. I don't want to dull my imagination or to stop asking the questions: what must it be like to walk past those missing posters every day? what must it have been like to have been blinded by the dust of metal and humans, tracing the walls of buildings, running in a vague direction in hopes of surviving what you don't yet understand? what must it have felt like to have been crushed by your office? or to have sped toward death with your hands bound? or to have been so desperate that you jump from the fiftieth floor?

I'm trying to find a balance, I really am. It's just that I'm not used to scripts that have parts only for bad guys and more bad guys, both guilty of turning innocent people into victims. Where are the good guys? Why are all the endings I see so unattractive?

I'm unable to reconcile victims here with victims of the Middle East. Why can't both fit in my head at the same time?