Not Again

Not again.

That was the immediate reaction so many of us had when news broke that a plane had crashed into a New York City high rise.

Not again.

Your mind spirals back to that other date (not 10/11) five years ago, and you can't help but start to think the unthinkable…again. The TV screens click on, and the phones start to ring, and your stomach tightens.

Not again.

And you begin to wonder: okay. Who did this? Why? What could possibly be the point?

Shortly after it happened, I began receiving frantic e-mails from a friend on Long Island, wondering if this was some sort of diversionary move. Maybe terrorists were trying to distract attention from gas they were unleashing in the subway. Or another attack. Maybe on the Empire State Building. Yeah. That must be it.

But no.

In New York City we are used to freakish things happening for unexplained reasons. Pipelines explode, cars catch fire, subways derail, or the Mets win the pennant. They are mysteries of the human condition here in New York. And we just deal with it and go on. But we have stopped thinking that strange and unexpected accidents are merely strange and unexpected. They have to be sinister. They must be worse than we think.

But no.

And in some ways, that makes this tragedy, in fact, worse than we think. And sadder, too. A man flying an airplane lost his way and crashed into a building on a rainy afternoon and died at far too young an age. We're relieved it wasn't the other attack we've been dreading.

But another attack, I think, has already taken place – an assault on our sensibilities. Terror has made us desensitized to more mundane tragedies that, in another time and another place, would be considered shocking.

Will we ever hear news like this again, and feel that way again?