State of Mind.

Same spot, different shot.

New York City, New York – The balloon pops – the gunshots – are silent now.

But, they still reflect off the concrete like dull hammers in my mind.

It has been more than 20 years since I last visited the Empire State Building. Twenty years since an aggrieved Palestinian teacher stood beside me in a tan trench coat – short, dark hairs bristling at the nape of his neck – and opened fire into the crowd on the 86th floor, leaving a young Danish musician doubled over, fatally shot.

Others fell around him, seriously wounded.

He then put a bullet into his own head as I lay below: the slow melt of a crimson puddle at my feet in those seconds-that-felt-like-minutes has stained my memory – likely forever. Time had stopped.

For some, literally.

Twenty years to return to this place, where life was a fleeting flash for some, fortune for others. Where falling, rising and falling again held the key to future stories and the ability to make memories anew. The key to return, even after 20 years.

Same spot, then.

Where one photo is all I had to distance me from nightmares. Or clutch me to its bosom. Rest in peace, Christoffer Burmeister, who did not have that opportunity.

I had, presciently, become nauseous moments before the shooting began. The feeling returned as I took a tentative first step onto the windy deck, unsure if memory lurked around the corner, now filled by unknowing visitors.

It did, but was gentle with me.

The blood is now scrubbed away, but the memory permanent. Oddly, the spot the shooter fell still appears to be traced by an abundance of sand. Even 20 years later, the deck seems to haunt me. But I am free.

Add to this day the hollow shells of melted fire trucks and ambulances stuck between twisted steel rising like gnarled fingers at the 9/11 memorial and museum, and a visit to Ellis Island, and it has been a really heavy day.

But one to remember.

In a positive light.