Musings on the end
of the world as we know it

I am absolutely numb. Not comfortably numb, like in the song. I have a sick, sticky feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’ve never felt before.

Everyone on the radio is talking about these attacks—the World Trade Center, the Pentagon—but the words are coming out all jumbled, and although I know that they’re saying, I can’t feel it.

“Another Pearl Harbor,” that’s what they’re saying. But how can I possibly understand that? I’m only 24 years old, living all my life in the security blanket that is suburbia.

“Full war.” Full what? The only war I remember was the 30-day excursion into the Persian Gulf, broadcast live on CNN; the bright lights of the bombs over Baghdad.

I find myself wondering if this is the end of the world…wondering if I care.

I always used to think about the end of the world. I pictured it would come in a big bang, like the beginning of the world. But this slow, calculated, cold attack is more than I can comprehend.

What will happen tomorrow, I wonder, and tomorrow and tomorrow—when the dead have been counted and buried and the tears have been shed… for the moment. We’ll have to live through tomorrow, too.

I feel angry, scared, terrorized, violated, violent, and numb all at once.

I wish there was a quick, easy answer, so that I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. So that I wouldn’t have to think, period.

For my generation, there’s no such thing as death. “When everything feels like the movies/Yeah, you breathe just to know you’re alive.” That’s the reality of things to 20-somethings.

Now here it is, smack-bam! Right in my face. New York is just a train ride away! Reality TV gone mad.

I think the closest thing I’ve ever been through like this was Princess Diana’s car crash.

Should I leave? Should I just get up and walk off, turning my back on the world and living like an animal in the woods or the mountains?

I wish I could.

But that wouldn’t be the responsible thing to do.

I’m 24, almost a quarter of a century old. I can’t just cry in my mother’s arms. I have to be strong, and do my job, be an adult.

I hear people on the radio crying for revenge, for punishment. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” As though the evil were a physical entity that you can catch and blame and punish. They say, “Those bastards will pay for what they’ve done,” as if they know who “those bastards” are.

In some ways, I’m grateful for the voice on the radio. It’s keeping me doped up with information, doped up with facts, raw data that can be used to drown out the fear and horror of it all.

God, I feel trapped! I want to go home and hug my sister,  hug my dog and hug my knees. I want to throw up.

Man, I’m so angry!!! How could anyone do this? How could they have just ripped into the heart of New York like that?

And how could we have let them! Aren’t the soft cradle of the Atlantic and Pacific supposed to protect us from things like this?

Not anymore. We’ve just stepped into a new age, an age where no one is safe. An age where a man with a gun can climb into your window, drag you out into the street, and take away everything you’ve ever loved.

An age…My age. 24.

Sarah Koenig, Copy Editor