The Eleventh

I was sitting in my living rom running a fever and watching the 9/11 memorial on CNN when it occurred to me that the Eleventh is my day to blog at the League, even in September. So here goes.

It’s hard for me to remember exactly what it was like on September 11, 2001. I was ten yearsyounger, new to being a Dad, and my writing was still just pie in the sky stuff. I’d finished a first novel, but it was bad and I didn’t know enough to recognize that yet. (It involves a mage and his familiar; maybe one day I will rewrite it).

Things I do remember:

Standing in the break room and seeing that second plane hit the World Trade Center.

Rolling the television out so that other folks at work could see what was happening, too.

Recording a video message with my wife for our tiny son, who was just one week old, so that he could understand the event later. (I’m not sure where we put that tape.)

And that’s pretty much it.

I feel I should mention that this is my umpteenth attempt to write this blog. There were a few full of intensely disrespectful (but funny) thoughts about what might have happened if various characters from my series were on one of the planes, if there had been another plane that was headed for Void City… I like to think the Mages Guild would have been really useful…

But it’s hard to write about.

Where’s the line between humor and disrespect? It’s a line for which I’m often searching. How much is too much? Not enough? Too high brow? Too low?

We live in a world where the X-men have fought vampiresuicide bombers, where Mark Waid’s Irredeemable explores what would happen if a being as powerful as Superman went nuts, (read it, it’s awesome), and where another comic, Ex Machina, is predicated on the idea that one world’s superhero’s greatest failure is that he only managed to stop one of the WTC Towers from being hit.

Maybe one day I’ll be comfortable writing a scene with ubervamped Eric emerging from a burning plane, but it isn’t today. Today I’m still in awe of the event. I’m too cowed by the air of respect and the so-called “failure of imagination” that prevented us from seeing those possibilities.

Comments

Karen said…
I had dropped my kid off at preschool and was watching Bryant Gumble while sucking down a cup of coffee. I remember him saying that a small plane had hit the towers. In back of him was footage of the tower on fire. As he was talking, I could see this huge plane coming. It banked and flew right at the tower. And even tho it said "Live" in the corner & I could see the first tower burning, I can remember thinking that I wasn't seeing what I was seeing. That it had to be footage of the crash he was reporting. And that it couldn't be a passenger plane I was seeing. I started screaming at my television because Bryant was completely oblivious to what had happened on the screen behind him and was kind of being a dick as he reported. They cut to a commercial almost immediately.

I still can't watch footage of any of it. I know two people who worked in those towers. One (a college friend) hadn't gone in to work that day. The other (my sister's ex) was on the 81st (I think) floor of the south tower. He was one of the last to make it out alive.

Although I'd love to read a story about Erik and a plane and would laugh my ass off, I have to agree with you. I don't think I could read it today.

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