Why wasn’t I offended when I just watched this?

I was curious instead. The whole thing lasts half a minute. I think I may have been waiting to see what happened in the end.

Had you decided to change the ending? No.

Your flipbook was a faithful adaptation of the events that morning.

Is this reportage?

Is this a folk memoriam?

Were you attracted to the subject matter on some level because it was dramatic, an action shot with an impact?

Is this your path “to processing the whole thing?”

Is this the trivialization or commoditization of a national tragedy, or is it a comment on the trivialization or the commoditization of a national tragedy?

Is this book proof that the culture critics who predicted The End of Irony were wrong?

Are we a strong nation or a weak one?

Are you sensitive or insensitive?

Your hands control the flip book- when you were making it, did you ever stop just short of the plane’s impact?

You could have stopped the plane just as it was inches from the steel and glass of the second tower. Closed the book before they got both of them.

Or, did you consider Photoshopping the last images to make change the story to a breathlessly close call?

“Wow!”

“Did you see that?!”

“Right at the very last minute, the quick thinking passengers knocked out the bad guys, veered the jet upward, away from all the good people below and then our Air Force jets escorted the plane to a safe landing at a small airport in New Jersey. That was a close one!!”

Your flipbook has an unhappy ending.

I haven’t seen this image for years.

After the first three hours after the attack, I decided to make a point NOT to look, because I didn’t want the nightmares. That morning, I watched because I remember thinking that I wanted to bear witness.

I’m pretty sure that I haven’t seen the entire thing all the way through since the afternoon of September 11th2001.

Has my plan worked?

I can’t remember ever having a nightmare with the Towers falling.

Though as it may be with the biggest, most tragic and cataclysmic events, who knows if the effects really manifest themselves as the nightmare of that day?

It seems more likely that the anxiety and unease, the change after that day, comes at most of us from all sides, and maybe at all times. It’s like humidity…or wind. Some days are worse than others.

At least I’d like to think so.

Wouldn’t it be worse to come to the realization that one wasn’t really affected by this tragedy?

Matthew Lahey