{"id":336356,"date":"2021-09-08T00:31:24","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T21:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/9-11-rolls-like-a-movie-in-brian-clarks-brain\/"},"modified":"2021-09-08T00:31:24","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T21:31:24","slug":"9-11-rolls-like-a-movie-in-brian-clarks-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/9-11-rolls-like-a-movie-in-brian-clarks-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"#9\/11 \u2018rolls like a movie\u2019 in Brian Clark’s brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#9\/11 \u2018rolls like a movie\u2019 in Brian Clark’s brain<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n He was on the 84th floor of the south tower. While 9\/11 does not haunt Clark to the degree it does so many others, he lives in its shadow.\n <\/div>\n
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\"Brian<\/p>\n

Brian Clark, 2021 (Photograph by Spencer Platt\/Getty Images; mural photo: Spencer Platt\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This profile is part of a series<\/a> called \u2018Living in the shadow of 9\/11,\u2019 which looks at how the worlds of five extraordinary people changed, twenty years later.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the days afterward, Brian Clark would get phone calls from family members of his missing colleagues, pleading to know if he had seen their person on his descent from the 84th floor of the south tower. He found a gentle way to tell them that if they hadn\u2019t heard from their loved one by then, they were not going to. \u201cI took some comfort, if you like, in that I was already helping other people understand what had happ<\/a>ened and I could be sympathetic,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Clark seems acutely aware that his basic emotional okay-ness as a survivor of 9\/11\u2014then, now and in the intervening years\u2014seems unusual, but he\u2019s always had a sunny outlook by default, and his Christian faith provides him with ballast. He never says no to any group that asks him to speak, though the endless retelling eventually became so onerous that now he directs them to a recorded version of his story and he\u2019ll speak to them afterward to answer questions. \u201cI can remember that day, it rolls like a movie in my brain,\u201d he says. \u201cOther than the 10 seconds when our building swayed after the second impact, after our building got hit, I was only terrified for those 10 seconds. At all other times, I had this feeling wash over me that, \u2018Brian, you\u2019re going to be okay.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0\u2018Hatred thrives when there is fear:\u2019 What David Adeeb Hassan has learned since 9\/11<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While 9\/11 does not haunt Clark to the degree it does so many others, he lives in its shadow. Recently, he called a real estate agent and the moment he introduced himself, she said, \u201cI know exactly who you are, you\u2019re Brian Clark of 9\/11.\u201d Other times in social<\/a> settings, he can see it coming in the usual flow of small talk: the standard question about where he\u2019s from leads to a mention that he moved from Toronto to New York when his company opened an office in the World Trade Center. The reactions vary from embarrassment to naked curiosity, but people are always kind about it. \u201cI sort of internally say, \u2018Oh darn, here we go down the rabbit hole again,\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t mind telling the story but I make it a really brief summary.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for whether he has ever tried to make sense of why he was spared that day when so many were not, Clark takes a philosophical approach to what might otherwise be survivor\u2019s guilt. \u201cI don\u2019t waste my time trying to answer unanswerable questions,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause, by definition, they\u2019re unanswerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Very few of us are inundated with global media coverage marking the passage of another year in our lives and our distance from events etched into our memories, but Clark waves off the premise that this is distinct for him. \u201cWe\u2019re all blistered or oversaturated in the 20th anniversary, but my 20th anniversary is no different than your 20th anniversary,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At first, this doesn\u2019t seem to make sense: 9\/11 belongs to him and his life story in a way it doesn\u2019t to the world at large. But then Clark elaborates and it becomes clear what he means. The march of time since that seismic day is the same for all of us, because whether you were on the 84th floor fleeing to safety or somewhere hundreds of kilometres away watching on TV in horror, no one will ever forget where they were when the towers fell.
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