Warned

Sarah Goodyear, for The Village Voice:

We were nearly halfway over the Brooklyn Bridge when he changed the subject.

As we crossed the river, on a bright sunny day very much like the day that awaited us two months in the future, he said, “You know, I am leaving the country and going home to Egypt sometime in late August or September. I have gotten e-mails from people I know saying that Osama bin Laden has planned big terrorist attacks for New York and Washington for that time. It will not be safe here then.”

Imagine being told of the attacks before they happened but dismissing the warning as unlikely.