.  .  .  .  .  . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
   .  .  .  .  .                                       In dedication to
 .  .  .  .  .  . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm     everyone who was lost
   .  .  .  .  .                                        or lost someone
 .  .  .  .  .  . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm      September 11, 2001:
   .  .  .  .  .                                           Anada 444
 .  .  .  .  .  . mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm         "Two Letters"   
                                                          by Infernal
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                                                           09/30/01
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        I guess I thought of you first when I saw the footage of the planes 
 crashing into the WTC just because I associate you with plane travel,
 and because you're so far away.  I can't sleep, I can't focus on 
 anything else -- I have this irrational urge to lock the store, pack a
 bag and get on the bus to New York and go help.  Help do what?  I don't 
 know.  I've never felt quite so irrelevant.  It seems like the height of
 folly to write pretty words on paper or hit drums or sell CDs right now.

        And I'm embarrassed that I'm so startled by this.  We all should
 have expected it, and we all should be thanking our own gods that this
 doesn't happen more often than it does.  We sit here with porous 
 borders, all-but-unlimited free speech and a bumbling bureaucracy -- not
 that I want the alternative, by any means, I just can't believe we 
 haven't paid an even higher price for our freedom yet.  And I feel bad
 that I'm more devastated by this than by the slow, countless death toll 
 of people from other places -- places where, I guess, I don't expect
 life to mean as much as it does in my clean and proper back yard. 
  Places that aren't real because I haven't been there yet.  I feel like a
 piece of shit, like I did something wrong, like I'm part of the 
 problem.  I'm overwhelmed.

        Did you get sent home from work?  They evacuated all kinds of big 
 buildings over here.  Toledo didn't get too affected, though they had
 cops and highway patrolmen all over the government buildings, and the 
 university and some banks closed.

        I guess I just wanted to check in with you.  I had to call my dad
 and my sister after watching and listening to the news, more to remind
 myself that I have human connections in this world and that I'm not alone
 and forgotten against a barbaric night.  It's incredible how thin the veneer
 of "civilization" is; how quickly a bustling street and a "permanent" 
 skyline can be turned into a bleeding war zone.  I feel like I've been
 walking around with a membrane of willful ignorance protecting me from 
 the dirt and blood of the world, and it was boiled away today in flame.
 I feel fucking horrible.

        Let me know you're okay, will ya?

        Love,
        Keith


 [*****]


 To: The Rest of the World
 From: The United States

        Yes, other countries have felt this.  Yes, America is sheltered.  My
 plea is that those of you in other lands would have the decency to grant us
 a little kindness right now.  We don't deserve it based on our prior
 actions, but we deserve it because we are as human, as frail as you.

        We have had our protective bubble of invulnerability (itself an 
 illusion) shattered.  Now is not the time for people of conscience in 
 other countries to say "we told you so."  You did.  We understand.  But we
 are hurting right now, and it is such a raw wound.

        Later, when we are all on the same page, when we have become used to
 our new, vulnerable perspective -- then is when to tell us how haughty we 
 were, how foolish this nation was to think itself immune.  For now, though,
 please clothe our shock in some dignity, and help us to get beyond the 
 incomprehension of what has been done to us.

        We have been loud and arrogant and self-assured before, yes.  But we 
 didn't know what it was like.  We never felt the truth like grit in our 
 guts like we do now.  Please, forgive us by indulging us our sorrow.  Then
 help us build a world where such sorrow is obsolete.  We may finally be
 scarred enough to understand why it's so necessary.

        In love for all peoples,
        Keith Bergman

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 . . .------
  * * ------  by Infernal                            (c) anada.net  09/30/01
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