dmp1

Psychology class. TV prevailent. News bursting at the seams. Hushed voices in the classroom. A mass by the glowing screen. Excited chatter. The bitter whisper. "I have to call home, my dad..." The ignorant slacker. "Hey, let's go bomb Europe!" Grief painted on quiet faces with hands rushing up to brush away the salt crystal drops. Gossiping syrup voices, sugar sweet, filled with empty words and joking tones that violate the scared stillness.

A touch on the shoulder.

Muse?

It has a pale face and hollow cheekbones.

Why do you always come in darkness?

*I come in joy as well, yet mortals are blinded by their own happiness. They laugh when I grace the room and turn away.*

Yet you are here now. Wearing a somber dress.

*These are somber times.*

I rush for the pencil with the thick grey lead and the white crisp paper. Hands fly and sheets rustle.

The instructor (doubles in Psychology along with the Holocaust, teaching students how to understand the workings of hatred in the human mind) spots me.

"Are you okay?"

Many people move very fast to cover up their tears. Two girls leave to the library, running to where the television screen does not light up the room.

"Yeah."

I open the notebook, pencil in hand.

Speak muse.

*Then let us begin.*

When we heard that the World Trade Center was attacked (commercial airliners smashed through their steel and concrete middles) it was unexplainable. The shock was like a mute over the soul - feeling being hacked off, a stillness of the heart. We could not speak, only stare at one another as if confronting a stranger.

Disbelief.

Amazement.

A question. "Where is the World Towers?"

That is the sum of American youth today.

My English instructor leaves the room anbd returns with a small 4'' X 6'' postcard. New York skyline by dusk. Window into the past now, sold on cheap wire racks for 99 cents. The twin pillars speared the sky, higher than the rest. They seem distant, imposing, challanging the incoming night. Standing even after the sun had disappeared.