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The Man in the Water
水中人
Roger Rosenblatt
罗杰·罗森布拉特
As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst US air crashes on record. There was the unusual element of the bridge, of course, and the fact that the plane hit it at a moment of high traffic. Then, too, there was the location of the event. Washington, the city of form and rules, turned chaotic by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal. The jets from Washington National Airport that normally fly around the presidential monuments like hungry gulls are, for the moment represented by the one that fell. And there was the aesthetic clash as well—blue-and-green Air Florida, the name of a flying garden, sunk down among gray chunks of ice in a black river. All that was worth noticing, to be sure. Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, does not necessarily bring the nation to tears or to attention. Why, then, the shock here?
就灾难而言，这次灾难虽然很严重，但并非绝无仅有，当然也绝对不在美国空难史上最严重的空难之列。这次灾难的不同之处在于：一是飞机是在交通高峰时段撞到了桥梁。另外就是事件发生的地点在华盛顿。突如其来的冬天的寒风以及金属与金属的撞击声，使这个布局合理、井然有序的城市突然变得混乱起来。从华盛顿国家机场起飞后，喷气式飞机一般都像饥饿的海鸥一样绕着总统纪念碑飞行。此刻，这架坠落的飞机成了它们的代表。再有就是飞机坠落与物体撞击带来的美学意义上的视觉冲击——号称“空中花园”的一架蓝绿相间的佛罗里达航空公司的飞机，坠入黑色河水的厚厚灰冰中。固然，这些都值得关注。不过，这些中除死亡之外没有什么特别之处。虽说死亡是特别的，但未必会让成千上万的人落泪或关注。那么，为什么这次空难令人如此震惊呢？
