Seeing forever didn’t quell my agitation. It was hard not to think about flames and smoke, to imagine the feeling of being hopelessly far from the street below, and then to feel all the dimensions of the room you’re in give way at once, and for what—to hold down a job, to look out over the Hudson? It wasn’t a good death. I watched the planes banking northeast out of Newark, or crossing midtown on their way into LaGuardia, as if my vigilance would do a damn thing for me or for anyone.