“Oh,no” I gasped “they did it on purpose.”

*****

After that, there were images of the Taliban beating women and the first Presidential speech I had ever watched- President Bush’s speech to the nation after the attack. That speech brought tears to my eyes, despite the indignation and exasperation that was to come later.

For me, it was the awakening of social consciousness. Where was Iraq? Do Talibs really think women are evil? Why did they attack us? I wouldn’t accept that they “hate our freedom”.

The phrase means nothing–nobody hates freedom.

What they may have hated was our power. I wasn’t sorry for living in a powerful nation. Maybe what they hated was abuse of power- at the time, I didn’t know if we were guilty of that, either. But if we were, how were these civilians responsible?

In the years to come, I would gradually begin to see the world anew- I would read about and study people. And I would crave their company. I would want to know about them.

I became engrossed in humanity.

I was homeschooled. I was powerless. I actually envied the NYPD and the firefighters. I wanted my hands dirty. I wanted to carry the bodies from the wreckage.

I just wanted to do something.

And I never could.

*****

Every two years I read To Kill A Mockingbird and each time, I see a perspective that I didn’t before. When I was 16, I fell madly, hopelessly in love with Atticus Finch.

This happens to me from time to time, these crushes on fictional characters. I don’t know whether they are healthy or not, but it seemed to me that Atticus was a man like no other. His wisdom, understanding and courage. His pocket watch, his reading the paper.

Men in my world then (and now, come to think of it) did not read and study. They care about sports, money and Jesus, with no room for all else. What would it be like to have an Atticus Finch in my life?

There’s something Freudian about this infatuation.

*****

So, this is the recurring image of my early teen years: two majestic blocks reaching into a cloudless day in the busiest city in the world, the towers shatter and begin to fall in smoke. People are jumping from the building to escape the pain, the terror, the blinding fear, the numbness in their hearts.

A panicked woman pushes her baby’s stroller away from the wreckage. People are running and screaming- the toughest, most jaded city-people in the world, grabbing each other’s arms, weeping. A grown man, covered in dust except for the two clear streaks beneath his eyes as he slowly turns his back on the fallen heap.

And there are dark eyes staring from behind a veil, the eyes of a human being wrapped in darkness. There is a beardless Iraqi man covered in blood, his eyes rolling in terror. There are bombs falling, there are people screaming, the bodies of soldiers blasted by IEDs. There is a man screaming to Allah at the top of his voice, his dead baby girl in his arms.

These people are mockingbirds.

And the image that comforts me is that of Atticus Finch, sitting by his son’s bed side. I think being him is a choice. This is the beauty of fiction- it can show you what is not really there, but the choice of whether or not to make it real belongs to you, the reader.