The Disaster of Terrorism
恐怖主义的灾难
by Craig Kielburger
New York has an energy of its own, and that late summer evening, I truly understood why. All around me the city was alive with activity as everyone headed in different directions. The Big Apple’s fabled ambition, wealth, and power were on full display, in the sleek cars stopped by the curb, the bright windows of the bustling restaurants, and the studied nonchalance of stylish young people out on the town. As I cut through the financial district, I passed the Twin Towers, shimmering in the streetlights.
Then came the next morning. Even before I heard what was happening, it was clear that something was terribly wrong: there was an unfamiliar edge of desperation to the city’s usual hectic pace. At a friend’s house, uneasy but unsure why, I turned on the TV news. Within seconds, I saw one, then another, plane crash into the World Trade Center. Time stopped．I was hit by the sickening realization that what I was seeing was real. I found it difficult to breathe as I stared blankly at the television scene. The horror hit me in waves, each more intense than the last.
A short distance away, people were injured, trapped, and dying. America was under attack. Again and again, the brutal images flashed by. The city was in a state of emergency. People were being told to stay inside and off the phones. Airports were closed, bridges clogged．
That evening there was a knock on the door. On the doorstep stood a ragged man looking frightened and shaken, covered with a thick layer of dust. His eyes were wide and strangely glazed, and his body seemed to tremble. He turned out to be one of the few to have made it out of the World Trade Center alive. As my host and I later learned, this man had spent the day wandering the city-in shock, trying to get through to his wife on his cell phone. When he finally reached her, tearful and happy beyond belief, she had reminded him that an acquaintance, my
host, lived in the areA．And so he stood there confused and full of apologies, unsure of what to say or do. Of course, he was immediately invited in. No sooner did he step across the threshold than he collapsed into a nearby chair. He would later say it was a miracle he was still alive.
The events that day rocked me to the core. Grieving for those affected, I realized that had things been different, I might have been at the World Trade Center myself. In the midst of my sadness and fear, I felt profoundly grateful to be alive. Twenty-four hours earlier, caught up in meeting after meeting, my biggest problem had seemed to be adding a few more hours onto the day. Now that world seemed so far away. Reeling from the tragedy, I realized that each and every hour I had was a blessing that not everyone would enjoy. I vowed never again to think of time as a problem-but only as a privilege. |
