Finished in November 2017

A Tribute To the Trade Center

By Zac Langridge

The two of you were an icon

Of engineering, of strength and financial prosperity
An icon of a city, that lasted over a quarter of a decade
An icon of tall towering structures, that dwarf the makers who unleashed the skyscraper on the Earth
And, during your short lives, you were unknowingly about to become a target, of the most horrific terrorist attack of modern times

However you were designed to withstand anything that could be thrown at you
New York needed an international World Trade Center, one which would be nothing like ever before
One which contained offices, departments, shopping malls, restaurants, and much more
One which could contain acres of construction, and 40,000 people arriving every day

So you were designed in the 60s, with thoughts of the future in minds
As your designers came with the iconic designs and plans, which made you recognizable
Two identical, steel, futuristic boxes that would be built in a new kind of fashion
A design that was meant to be innovative, unique, and totally strong

You rose in the 70s, and were both completed on separate years
But you were accepted as twins, as your facades of dizzying grid-like steel were hoisted to the top
Many construction and engineering feats accomplished, a continuous effort from thousands
On two huge constructions, situated right next to each other

When the North of you was completed, there was a half
And when the South was finished, you were a whole
A finished masterpiece, an enormous complex of six (soon to be seven) buildings, with you twins as the centerpiece
The tallest in the world, eclipsing your famous ancestor the Empire State by many meters

It was a dream come true, but not for all
You were criticized by many, as being “glass and metal filing cabinets”
The complex in which you sat was called “inhospitable”, an ugly, large, dense construction of modern times
You were bigger and uglier, uniform and bland, an eyesore for those with traditional taste

But I, along with many others, think differently
We marvel at your size, at your design, at the unique construction and aesthetics
We embrace you as a part of architecture and history, and look back at you with awe
We look at you fondly, brush off the critical backlash, and understand your visual identity more than ever before

Even those - like myself - who weren’t alive when you stood, recognize you immediately
The two familiar towers that dominated the already impressive skyline, are still a prominent feature in our minds
You were dark silhouettes at sun up and down, and shiny silver boxes during the day
Looking at Manhattan from many angles, you couldn’t be missed, always there, standing proud

Looking directly up from the ground, is dizzying, even in mere photos
The identical sides of you, reinforced facades of glass and steel rise like a tight unforgiving grid
Your windows are thin slits, to enforce a sense of security, and gifting you a unique, windowless appearance
Millions of tons of reflective construction, rising like two artificial cliffs, with a chasm between

Your design was simple, yet effective
Twin, rectangular, shiny silver buildings, spaced slightly apart from one another
Impressive and awe inspiring, dizzying and terrifying, triumphant and proud
It’s a hostile, futuristic design, plain and somewhat ugly….but yet it’s beautiful and graceful at the same time

A city within a city, giving workspace to those with a living, in 16 manmade acres of space
A home for those workers, arriving and leaving underground by subway, never having to step outside
You sheltered those workers from storms, fighting strong winds that battered you from side to side
Flexing you, and bending your steel, and allowing you both to sway, like gentle giants over the crowds

On September 10th, on the second year of a new era, you glistened in the night as usual, among the lit skyline
Artificial stars within two skyscrapers, within artificial stars within a city, within an island, within a river, within another city
Your tenants worked as usual in their offices, and left at varying times, leaving you to shine for one last time
The sun rose the next morning and your lights flickered off, and people began to arrive as usual

Within hours you will both be gone, and the world will have changed

And then I was born, less than a year after you fell, oblivious to the former existence of you
Unaware and unable to comprehend the tragedy, that came during the very time I was conceived
You see in the month before my life began, your last column was removed
Almost all physical remains of you, wiped from the Earth, only lingering on in memories and snapshots in time

Now as I’m writing this now, a new tower has risen in your place
A 21st century skyscraper, sleek and reflective and strong, designed to last
This building is beautiful and already iconic too, but it lacks your former charm and status
A hole that will never be entirely filled

And now I can only see you both in pictures and films, and admire what you were
I would’ve loved to have seen you beautiful buildings in person, but I was born too late
And can only picture your magnificence in my mind, based on snapshots taken in time
And although I never got to see you, and never will, my respect and awe for you, the original World Trade Center, is genuine and strong

Despite your end, and the tragic deaths of those thousands of people on 9/11, you will never be forgotten. And the famous image of the two, tall, Twin Towers on Manhattan island, will continue to live on in history and minds for a long time.

Finished in September 2017

A Metaphor

*Writing Based On a Given Quote*

By Zac Langridge

Took this photo specially for this piece of writing, as I couldn't find any good images online.
Amazing what iPhone cameras can capture!

The acid was a nasty colour. A strange, almost stale-looking mixture of brown and orange. It was cloudy, chemicals creating a weather pattern of activity inside the liquid.
The skeleton of a man that stood over the bowl containing the acid, had an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes were blank and his mouth was slack, but his face conveyed something else, overall. His lank hair, dull clothes and sallow skin were almost a visual representation of his expression.
He reached into his stained pockets and drew out two coins. A copper 10 cent, and a silver 50 cent. He held the two objects in the palm of his hand, examining them with unforgivingly blank eyes. The glossy silver gleamed and shone brightly, a sharp contrast with the rustic matte finish on the copper one. He eyed them with some sort of curiosity.
And then he dropped the coins into the acid. They sunk slowly and the reaction was almost immediate. Once they’d nearly reached the base, bubbles began to form and rise to the top. The coins themselves seemed to be emitting jets of bubbles, similar to those underwater vents the man had seen in meaningless television programs. The reaction slowly grew more violent; the bubbles growing slowly, bursting at the surface and disrupting the initial calm. A sharp, acrid smell began to reach the man’s nostrils. He spat and watched as fumes rose from the bowl, the acid now seething.
As he watched, the water began to change colour. The bubbles were now coloured, a rusty reddish-brown. The man’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes were focused on the expanding colour. It was like red sand being stirred up in the shallows of a beach. Clouds of red filling up the parameter of the bowl. The coins were hidden from view, but he could imagine the edges being thinned down, eaten away and dissolved, like plaque rots tooth enamel.
Like his mind.
The fumes were red now. It swirled in the breeze around him, like a halo of acrid smoke. He stared for a moment at the seething, boiling acid - and then he tipped it out. Without hesitation, he just overturned the bowl, pouring out the acid and the coins. The steaming liquid flowed over the flagstones and into the cracks in the gridwork. Goodness knows what damage it would do, but it meant nothing to him. Nothing mattered anymore. As the acid drained away, he saw the remains of the coins on the ground. The overall shape of them had been seriously deformed; they were now flattened like rolled out steel, the edges as sharp as a razor. The patterns on them were almost incomprehensible, and the melted tarnish on the coins had turned them into various colours, obscuring their copper and silver hues. A complete mess, a twisted, deformed, mutated, broken mess.
Like his mind.

THE END

Finished in August 2017

Realization

I’m in a daze. It’s an odd sensation. There’s the world around me, noisy and moving with people doing their own things and minding their own business. Typical and unordinary.
And then there’s me, staggering around in a state of mind that’s something between asleep and awake. Everything is blurred and unfocused, like a hallucination that’s been warped and had bits cut out of it. I’m cut off from everyone and everything, isolated even though I’m standing on the same ground as others. My mind is like an island surrounded by a raging ocean, cut off from civilisation, unable to swim the currents and waves.
I’ve been like this ever since I realised the blatant obviousness of the truth. A truth that was hidden from me for years, all my life. From the very moment I came into this world in fact. I have been lied to, fabricated “truths” force-fed to me without me realising. I was blind, my vision obscured by a cloud of manipulation, it’s billowing tendrils the strings that lift and drop me, like a wooden puppet. Like a toy.
Now the cloud has lifted from my eyes, the strings have frayed and snapped. I am free. I am not blind. I am immune to their lies. I’m still in shock, though.
Only hours before, my mind managed to pick through the memories of my life. All the events, all the things I’d done, all the things others had done. I searched through my collection of memories, like a archeologist searching a cave, picking up all those mysteries, all those little inconsistencies, those odd hiccups in my experiences. And like a detective looking for clues in a murder, I uncovered the truth in those veils of memories - each of them as fake as plastic.
The emotions I’m feeling is indescribable. I’m confused, stunned….. Why!? Why would this happen? Why would our whole lives be riddled with lies from those that brought us up? When did it start? Why did it start? My mind is going around in circles. Coming back to the same questions over and over.
Why did I have to uncover this scarring, overwhelming truth? If I had ignored all the traces of clues left behind, would I have still come across this? Would it have been better if I’d not realised it? I would have been ignorant to this plan years in the making. Already I wish I could turn back the clock, cover up the clues I found, hide the truth from me! Become innocent-minded again.
And then, among the veils of shock and confusion, a speck of anger starts to grow. Like blood, red and spreading outwards, a toxic flower. Slowly, the anger is no longer anger: it’s fury. Then madness. Then seething uncontrollable rage. Like a breaking wave, it crashes inside me, and roars and spreads. I am consumed in it. My body is extraordinarily tense, every muscle responding to my emotions. My hands are trembling, fingers quivering, arms and shoulders hunched.
I want to scream. Just open my mouth and roar to the sky, an enraged curse towards the heavens. I want to punch something, or someone. Curl up into a ball and stay there for eternity.
And then I realise something.
Quite suddenly, I freeze and start to think. It’s a scary thought, but it’s also exciting. And it gives me ideas.
I am the only teenager or kid that realises this, and knows their plan!
I stand where I am as the magnitude of this revelation sets in. My mind begins to race again, but this time my head is full of solutions, schemes and plots. Now I’ve flipped the coin on its head. I am now the planner and will hopefully be the deceiver, if these ideas I’m getting actually end up working.
First things first. No human being probably under the age of 19 knows about this - aside from me. No human under 19 being has probably suspected, or guessed that a plot of this nature had been conceived. But what if they knew? What if I told them? They probably wouldn’t believe me, but if that’s so, I’ll show the evidence. And that’ll surely convince them, as it convinced me!
I start walking again, my mind boiling over with thoughts. And the bitter anger comes back. I channel that anger into the plans I’m beginning to form. It’ll come in handy for sure. It’s time I revealed to my fellow generation members how cleverly we’ve been deceived and manipulated.

And from then on, we’ll just have to work out where to go from there.

Finished in August 2017

The Last Look

By Zac Langridge

The shuttle rose up above the tarmac of the launch-pad, a large dark pillar lit up by many floodlights. The sight was eerie and strangely futuristic, made all the more stark by the darkening sky.
Feeling sick and unsteady, Nicholas swallowed as he made his way across the pad to the shuttle. His heart was screaming at him, thudding in his chest like a warning alarm. He could feel his body, under the reasonably thin uniform, drenched in sweat. It was too shadowy to see what he looked like, but if he could see his hands, he imagined his flesh would’ve looked sickeningly pale.

Walking across the launch pad had seemed so simple years ago. When Nicholas had seen previous missions, astronauts had waked to the shuttle without hesitation, unflinching. Nicholas had longed to be in their place. Now he was here, he knew how they would’ve felt.
He stared up at the rocket, with it’s huge boosters and the tall orange fuel tank. He’d seen things like that before, years before - on TV, in cinema, on documentaries, and finally, in person. They were tremendous feats of engineering, strong and proud, designed to protect those who rode into oblivion inside them. They were just like in movies. Sleek, impressive structures that made you stand back in awe. Now, this rocket in front of Nicholas felt like a (possible) tomb.

He was at the retractable ramp which led into the ship. Here it was. I’m here! I’m here! I am here! Nicholas felt like his brain was about to implode. All his life he’d wanted to be in this position, and voila! Here he was! And now that he was here he wanted to throw up, cry, cheer and run away all at once. His mind was filled with visions of endless universe. Billions of shimmering stars. Globules of rock and gas as planets. The black holes, nebulae - everything he’d wanted to see…..
Nicholas took a breath, and halfway up the ramp he stopped. He looked up at the dark violet sky - up at the endless void where he was about to head into. The sun had sunk below the horizon at least half-an-hour ago, and the sky was painted with a ribbon of deep red at the horizon, which faded into a milky blue and then a dark inky black. All his life he’d been living under this gorgeous veil of life, and he’d never appreciated ever as much as he did now. In the distance at the edge of the concrete was a thin strip of green, trees silhouetted against the redness. A few lights in the distance. Nothing else.

Nicholas took the deepest breath he’d ever taken before. Then another. And another. I’m ready for this! I’m ready to go up. But was he ready to leave? Was he really ready to leave?
Yes. No Yes. No! Yes!
One last breath, and Nicholas walked back. Literally; he started walking backwards up the ramp. Getting closer to the rocket. To his portal away from home and into the universe. His whole body trembling, he reached the top of the ramp and stepped into the doorway. He was now inside the shuttle.
But he kept his eyes on the horizon. The darkening sky, the strip of fading sunlight, the concrete, greenery, lights…..Earth.
Then the door hummed closed and locked securely.

THE END

Finished in August 2017.

Breaking Point

By Zac Langridge

Breaking point

That can mean many different things

For different scenarios and different people

For different times and different places

And for certain people

This is our version

How long does it take to endure

The cruelness of the world

How long does it take to endure

The obvious fact that we’ve been brought up

In a selfish, uncaring society that’s only getting worse

How long does it take to endure

The crushing reality that we’re surrounded 

By ignorant people who are hiding behind a veil of denial

Towards the consequences of their generation’s actions

How long does it take to endure

The relentless movement of humanity around us

Knowing that it’s too late

And there’s no hope for us youth

How long does it take to hold in

The feeling of abandonment and selfishness

That’s been inflicted on us

By those that have experienced better and kinder lives

How long does it take to hold in

The distaste towards those that have brought us up

Like animals, being led towards a killing house

Bred to be slaughtered

How long will it take to make them understand

That their ironic distaste for today’s world

Comes only from themselves and their “evolution”

As human beings

How long will it take to make them understand

That it is them who’ve screwed us over

And have left us only chaos and war and global pollution

And the poor decisions that they’ve made

Will have impacts for decades to come

How long does it take for us to realize

That our only future is cleaning up their mess

And that the consequences of their actions will hit us hardest

How long will it take for them to accept

That their generation’s legacy will be despised by us

And our children

How long does it take for us to understand

That this is our breaking point

Building up, unstoppable

A pressure of emotions towards them and the society

That they’ve created for us

How long does it take

For the passive, seemingly innocent shell to crack open

And pour out the acid that is boiling and seething

With anger and depression towards those responsible

How long does it take

For the brain to become diseased with hatred

A cancer poisoning your thoughts and views of the world

And when that build up is too much to handle

What happens then

Will the breaking point be

An unstoppable explosion towards society

An outburst towards those closest to us

A silent acceptance of the ruined future that has been laid out before our doomed generation

Only time will tell