Papers from the sky on 9/11

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I don't know why, but I was thinking about this today:

On the afternoon of 9/11/2001, I remember walking in Brooklyn on the way to a cafe with a few friends. We were getting together to try to make sense of what happened, and keep each other company in our shock. While we were walking, a great cloud of paper came over the neighborhood, fluttering down to the street. I think it was from 7 WTC, which collapsed in the afternoon. I picked up a few pages and saw that it was financial balance sheets from some company. Some of the pages were slightly singed. I kept them, and thought that I would return them to the company whose name was printed on the bottom. In the end I never got around to it and I'm not sure where they went - probably in the garbage. I'm sure that it wouldn't have made a big difference to the company after losing their entire office, but I've always regretted it nontheless. It would have been symbolic, perhaps, but symbolism counts.

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