12th Sep 2001
Kyrie eleison

The silence, broken at last. And how it has been broken. Shattered into splintered shards of concrete and metal, and clouds of grey ash.

The news broke yesterday, abruptly. Seated in the doctor's mess in Basildon Hospital, we recoiled collectively as we witnessed a fireball unfolding on the flank of one of the World Trade Centre towers. Moments later, the tower collapsed, probably with thousands of people screaming as one within it as the floor fell out from beneath their feet. Just before the roof crushed them from above.

Tragedy beyond comprehension. Tens of thousands dead. And yet, somewhere out there, fools are rejoicing. People on the streets of Palestine dancing, angsty teenagers of once-upon-a-time ethnicity celebrating the blow to the "west" when they themselves reside, and study in the west. On television today, a rabid Brit trying to have us all understand that the Americans brought it upon themselves by being the tyrannical world-policemen that they are.

Tens of thousands of innocents, killed. No glorious war campaign this, no child-soldiers gritting their teeth and watching comrades die - knowing that this would be their fate. But instead, hundreds of hapless tourists, from all around the world, caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. Thousands of office workers picking up their cups of coffee, doing their everyday routine, looking out the window perhaps to see a jetliner heading straight for them. Last moments of sheer terror. Passengers calling home on their mobiles to say their last farewells, moments before being obliterated in a fiery death on the side of a building. And people out there are celebrating. All they see is the blow to the white man. Blind to the deaths of thousands of black, yellow, green and blue men and women at the scene of the time. Blind to the fact that these were innocent people, much like themselves, all with family. Blind, in their enthusiasm and fanaticism, in their bias and prejudice, to anything remotely human, and humane. Empathise with the killers? No. Seek understanding, perhaps. Can I understand why they did it? No, not even that. I can't begin to empathise, and I simply cannot understand it. How can you target tens of thousands of civilians, to prove a point? The Pentagon, I can understand. The White House, I would have understod. The twin towers....... How can anyone be so myopic to expect this to go unpunished? America would be fully justified to annihilate the perpetrators, and any hapless civilians in the way - because their own civilian lives have been lost. Wrong, yes. Justified - unfortunately. Such is the way with retribution. A single nuclear missile would wipe the terrorists (wherever they be from) country off the map, everything they pretend to fight for. In a courages, bold stroke - they have ensured the deaths of everything they know. And yet they rejoice?

What are these games of children, that grown men play?

How can the terrorists possibly feel anything but shame? They have shamed their causes, their countries - and their Gods. They have butchered innocents, and earned themselves eternal condemnation from whatever celestial beings they pray to. And they will be brought to justice - if not by men, then by their Gods.

All I can do is seek consolation in the fact that nobody I know was involved - or at least, that I haven't heard the news of anyone I know being involved, yet. A small consolation, in the face of the enormity of it all.

In London today, cold, grey overcast skies. Strangely fitting.

Thousands of pages out there, not unlike my own will be offering their own condolences and prayers for the relatives of the dead as I write this. And so it should be. Protect and strengthen them, O' lord, and forgive the leaders of the United States should they choose to retaliate with excessive force. Such are the games of men...