ONE.
I'll tell my story, and then I'll get into the aftermath stuff, which is already beginning to piss me off.

I heard about the first crash as I was waking up this morning - I had the radio on, I was late, as usual, and they cut in with the news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

So I flipped on CNN, and when the second plane hit, we heard it out the open window. At that point, it became clear that this was an organized attack and not some freak accident. We made coffee and settled in for the day.

Dust started to gather in the air, a little on the street. The sounds of sirens started to fill the air, and haven't stopped yet. People began walking along our street covered in soot and dust, their faces and clothes ripped, clearly in shock, bearing ice packs and casts, clearly having been discharged from triages nearer the scene.

I've been sequestered in the apartment ever since. The streets have been unpassable, and really, why leave? Here is where the action is.

Now that the sun is setting, the flow of emails is starting to ebb, and people are starting to arrive at the house. I don't know how long I can stand the flow of rhetoric that's spewing out of the TV, but the fires continue, casting a lovely pale orange glow against the cloudless late afternoon sky.