the lie he perpetrates

He looks up marveling at the light as it casts a hue over the neighboring high rise and notices how color is light, a kind of visual intelligence that is stratified and deepens in intensity when the physics are right. Could anyone possibly understand this, he wonders, then admits he doesn’t know fuck about anything, that his wish to be non-existent is not some self-fulfilling prophecy but a last resort. He finds himself down near World Trade, choking on the toxic stew of fried building materials and watching people stare through the holes in the large round cutouts of plywood surrounding the carnage. Tourists are taking snapshots of their loved ones with the devastation, like a famous ruin in the background, reduced to a roadside attraction as if the event had not really happened, the unthinkable, not in a neighborhood near you.