In The Stairwell

I remember after 9/11 I couldn't shake one image from my mind. It stuck with me for days and was kind of the background theme to everything else I was doing at the time. I kept thinking of all the firemen in the stairwell walking up the 100 flights of stairs weighed down with equipment and heavy gear while panic stricken people ran down the other side. I never even heard anyone talk about that specifically and obviously I didn't actually see it, but I couldn't shake the thought. It still gets me now.

I'm remembering this with the daily news about Haiti because now I have another image. I can't stop thinking about the people buried under all that rubble. For days. I'm not thinking of a person sort of splayed under a heavy pile of crumbled cinderblocks, even though a lot of the photos I have seen seem to show that. I'm thinking of a person tucked under a stairwell, knees to their chest, head bent over, just waiting.

My step-dad, Bub, was a soldier in Italy during World War II when he had to take cover in a barn with about 12 other guys in his troop. Bub hid by himself under some stairs, tucked behind a wall. They all waited for over an hour while they heard German voices and gunfire outside. Finally, Bub said, he heard a grenade roll across the floor above him and the entire barn exploded. He was the only one who survived.

I asked him (stupidly) what was going through his mind when all of this was happening and he said he didn't remember, but if he had to guess he'd say What's next?