Almost as soon as it happened I made a resolution that I would never write or tell breathless accounts of Where I Was When It Happened—there would be enough of those already to last us the rest of our lives.

But I can’t help it; none of us can help it.

I was working nights at the bookstore and so I tended to sleep in pretty late in the morning. Neil woke me up at eleven saying The World Trade Center is gone, a statement which made absolutely no sense at all. Then he handed me the phone and my brother was on it, all the way from Italy, which in my half-asleep state didn’t make any sense either, and I apologized for being half-asleep and not knowing anything. “Sorry dude.” I spent the rest of the morning watching the news and trying unsuccessfully to get back through to my brother on the phone.

Then my boss at the bookstore called to say not to bother coming into work. The mall was being shut down. Neil and I spent the rest of the day watching the news, jogging, drinking, and listening to the new Björk album.

These are facts which fail to add up to anything more than the sum of their parts. There is no unifying theme, no larger architecture.