Half way through the book I realized I was reading a story about a 9/11 World Trade Center survivor who either suffered from a terrible case of Survivor’s Guilt or was haunted by the people who he worked with that had died in the terrible tragedy that shook America. This story was adapted into a movie in 2011.

Included in “Stephen King * Just after sunset“

Memory always needs a marker, and that’s mine

As infants, our first victory comes in grasping some bit of the world, usually our mothers’ fingers. Later we discover that the world, and the things of the world, are grasping us, and have been all along. Borges? Yes, it might have been Borges

The story:

Scott Staley moves into a new apartment and he meets his gorgeous and sexy neighbour who insists she is married to a man we never see (looks like a front so she won’t have to date any guy hitting up to her). Scott helps her when a pipe bursts and he is happy he found a new friend only to be shocked when he returns back to his appartment and finds a pair of heart-shaped glasses waiting for him. And a baseball bat. And a coin in a cube. And a conk shell. And an Alice in Wonderland statue made from porcelain. All of these items are intimately linked to his former coworkers who died in the 9/11 crash. Before I figured out that these things appearing in his house were those of his work-mates, I really, really thought he was a serial killer that is haunted by the artefacts of his victims.

If I called and told Peg about the things I’d found in my apartment, she would suggest I get down on my knees and ask Jesus to come into my life. Rightly or wrongly, I did not feel Jesus could help me with my current problem.

This story is not gruesome due to the haunting but due to the vivid depiction of how people died in the 9/11 tragedy.. from a woman jumping off the 101st floor primly holding her skirt down and looking like everything would be fine to the guy who went under his desk with his hair on fire knowing that he would give every penny he had to live another day so he could mow his lawn.

He claimed to have seen a photo that caught her as she dropped, Sonja with her hands placed primly on her skirt to keep it from skating up her thighs, her hair standing up against the smoke and blue of that day’s sky, the tips of her shoes pointed down. The description made me think of “Falling,” the poem James Dickey wrote about the stewardess who tries to aim the plummeting stone of her body for water, as if she could come up smiling, shaking beads of water from her hair and asking for a Coca-Cola

“The place was full of screams, he could smell jet fuel, and he knew it was his dying hour. Do you understand that? Do you understand the enormity of that?”

Story was so-so as it did not seem to explain why Staley got all of these items (and especially why now of all times) except perhaps very storng survivor’s guilt.

The story ends with him calling one of his coworkers widow (who became a beauty after her husband’s passing – irrelevant info btw) and telling her he found a conk shell in his cupboard and wondering whether she would want a memento of her dead husband. Seems to me he was up to re-opening barely closed wounds…

Rating: 2/5

Worst bits: 

Discussing Lolita (the movie) with the guys on the stairs. The heart-shaped glasses weren’t needed in this story unless there was a better background story as to why his female co-worker got them as  “bitter” divorce present. Was she very young?

Best bits:

“The politicians talk about memorials and courage and wars to end terrorism, but burning hair is apolitical.” She bore her teeth into an unspeakable grin. A moment later it was gone. “He tried to crawl under his desk with his hair on fire. There was a plastic thing under his desk, a… a what-do-you-call-it, a…”

“A mat?”

“Yes, a mat, a plastic mat, his hands were on that and he could feel the ridges in the plastic and the smell of his own burning hair. Do you understand that?”

I nodded, starting to cry.”