Sept 11 here passed almost unnoticeably. Didn’t see or hear a thing of motorcades, church bells, speeches or parades, missed the TV news. We never put the TV on in this apartment. Online the newspaper headlines “Bush lays wreath at Ground Zero” is not really a story I am going to read. (I did read the one where he admitted Saddam was not behind 9/11 though. That was grimly amusing. Next week he is going to announce that the world is not flat but round, as he slowly works his way back through history announcing things that are well known and/or totally obvious to everyone. Days are shorter in the winter admits Bush. War in Vietnam was a mistake. Etc).

When we went out to buy wine late at night there was a very dark dramatic sky with huge white moonlit clouds. The twin lights of the memorial were shooting straight up, as they always do, but hitting the clouds, like their path was blocked, filling the cloud immediately above them with light. We passed a guy stood on a street corner and I noticed him for some reason, I assumed he was waiting for a friend. We got wine, the looped off in another direction to get detergent (see how it all very exciting here?). When we finally walked back the same way perhaps 45 minutes later the same guy was still stood there, in the same spot and faced in the same direction. Only then did we realise that he was looking downtown to the lights, just stood there watching them and thinking.