I thought I had comprehended the awfulness of Manhattan until someone drew my attention to a photograph in one of the American news weeklies showing people jumping from one of the towers before it collapsed.
Of the figures of several men and women plummeting to their deaths, two, a man and a woman, appeared to be holding hands.
It is a clichΘ to say that the calamity of the World Trade Centre resembled the most unbelievable horror sci-fi movie.
I watched from within minutes of the first aircraft hitting the first tower.
There was something unreal, unreachable, about it. The thought crossed my mind that we have evolved forms of technology to watch such calamities but no means of intervening in them.
When the towers began to fall, there was a, yes, spectacularity about it, and one had to remind oneself deliberately that there were still possibly thousands of people inside.
So many times we had seen comparable sights created by special effects, acquiring the ability to be shocked without feeling anything real.
That dual emotional response did not disperse in me until I forced myself to look at that photograph.
And I had to force myself.
This image was beyond words, belief or comprehension, and yet somehow made possible the beginnings of comprehension.
Its horror, it began to dawn on me, resided in the story that might lie behind it.
Who were they, this man and this woman? What did they mean to one another? Were they lovers or good friends? What had been their thoughts, that morning, brushing their teeth? Had they arrived at the World Trade Centre a short time before, hand in hand? Did they ascend in the lift together? Were they alone and, if so, did they smooch on the way up? Did they linger a moment in a corridor before going to their separate desks, planning to meet for lunch? Did one of them ring the other just after they parted?
And in the fateful moments after the plane hit their tower, did they seek one another out, understanding immediately that this was the end?
What did they say to begin to comprehend what had happened to their beautiful lives, to their hopes and dreams, to their plans of being together?
What words did they use, this man and this woman, to set in train the beginning of the end of their lives?
Which of them made the first move, beginning the short process of setting out the awful logic of their situation?
Did the man say to the woman, or the woman to the man: "We are going to die"? How did this notion begin to root itself between them? Did their lives flash before them, both at the same time? Did they have time to look into the awful chasm now opening up between what they had imagined their lives might be like and what their remaining minutes or hours were likely to be like unless they took their lives into their own hands?
How did they come to terms with that enormity in the little time they had to make up their minds? Or, were they just too terrified for words? Was the situation and its awful solution so obvious that no words were necessary or even possible? Were tears their only exchange?
Did the man lead the woman, or the woman lead the man, in silence towards the window to their mutual doom?
What was it like, in those stricken rooms in those fatally wounded towers in those final minutes as the world looked on, unable to do anything, unable even to register the emotional difference between this and a Spiderman movie? Was there a logic to that final act? Was it based on the ineluctable knowledge of the reality which we now know only too well?
Did they know for sure the tower would fall? Was there nothing of hope? Did they make a conscious choice that falling to their deaths was better than being roasted alive?
Did they pray for a miracle, perhaps being blown on to a ledge below the fire beneath them? Did God come into it?
Did they decide to depart this world hand-in-hand, so as to enter the next in the same way? Did either or both smoke a final cigarette, or did it strike them it was against the law? Did they jump at the same instant or had one of them to pull the other after him or her?
Did they utter final words of love?
Were there other people queueing up for the ledge and did they have to jump hurriedly without saying goodbye, or safe home or see you on the other side?
Did they speak on the way down?
How long did it take before they hit the ground - how long, I mean, in real time - the length of time it takes to - what? - turn the page of a newspaper or change the channel on a TV set?
Did they have time to look around, one last time, at the world they had so suddenly to depart? Did one of them perhaps catch a glimpse of what might have been, in the distance, a camera flash, before that first blaze of heaven exploded in their brains?
I hope and pray they are together now, that man and woman we saw falling in togetherness, and that they can remember their dreams of love on Earth and laugh at how little they had been prepared to settle for.
May they rest in peace and love.
jwaters@irish-times.ie