Assignment task:
Love that Kills Although I lived close to New York City during graduate school years in the early eighties, I was unable to visit the city except twice. I roamed through its famous landmarks and accepted a dinner invitation from the aunt of a friend of mine who was celebrating her sixtieth birthday in the restaurant located at the top of the World Trade Centre. The city, no doubt, had its charm at the time, yet I felt a certain misgiving. "Life had to be safer!" I regularly checked my wallet and my heartbeat accelerated each time we turned into a side street. When we visited my friend's friend, who was trying to earn a living through painting, and I found that she had fitted her door with more than three locks, I decided that this city was of no interest to me, contrary to what so many other people felt. In the summer of 2001 matters took a completely different turn. I spent one week in the city and fell in love with it. I was taking part in a symposium held at the University of Louisville in the state of Kentucky, focusing on the question of 'post-modernity'. The program included a visit and tour of the city of New York with the aim of introducing the participants to its postmodern sites. The program, also, included attending a lecture on Toni Morrison. I loved the city and found real pleasure walking through it. I was struck by its vitality and the diversity of the people crowding its streets, as manifested in their attires, their ethnic origins, or the beliefs they held. Its markets, its libraries, its theatres, its restaurants and its coffee shops differentiate it from the quiet city of Louisville known primarily for its famous Derby and the fact that Mohammad Ali Clay was raised in it. My conscience pounced on me: "How could you so easily have ignored this city through all those years? New York is the city of opportunities. Stephan, who came from Poland to study literature just like you, changed his line of education into law and was employed in New York with a salary beyond imagination. New York made of Richard, your housemate, an icon in the world of painting. John, who took you to the airport in his fancy car, has become a big executive in City Bank. What about your fellow student of literature and your countryman, Edward Said? Did he not make himself in New York? What have you done during the past seventeen years? You scurried back the moment you finished your education, pushed by a reckless passion pulling you to your family and society and by a silly fear that a burglar might snatch your wallet. What have you achieved?" The world grew black in my eyes as I sat in the airplane on my way back, pondering upon a fatal error I had committed and which I had suddenly discovered seventeen years later.... Should I go back to New York and start all over again? A week later, two airplanes struck the two towers of the World Trade Centre, forever changing the city's features, as if my mere contemplation to go back to the city was - a sin. 552 Briefly explain all the ideas of the story and mention the important things in the story