In the course of listening to podcasts you discover long-ago stories that have been forgotten or filed away in the dusty annals of history. Listening to one I follow called Cautionary Tales I found out about a horrible disaster that happened at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency back in July of 1981 that killed 114 people and injured another 216. The details are sad and gruesome...but darkly fascinating in a way I found made me uncomfortable. We all slow down to look at accidents, I know —some more than others— but I don't tend to dwell on genres like horror or true crime partly deliberately in the belief that there's something a little sick about obsessing over these darker human impulses. During the first specific (if not particularly graphic) description of the injuries suffered by people crushed by 60-tonnes walkways that collapsed onto partygoers in the lobby of the hotel I could have stopped, but I didn't. Is this a laudable determination to face the truth of an event no matter how difficult? Or a voyeuristic tendency inherent in all of us that maybe has some evolutionary purpose? I'm not sure but after listening I inevitably went to the wikipedia page of the event, which was mostly technical detail about the structural cause of the disaster, but then also clicked on a news clip of the event, which tried its best to focus on the nobler aspects of human nature in the face of tragedy - which were real.

Survivors were interviewed from hospital beds with a life-affirming gratitude I could only glimpse at. Those who had died were shown in photographs unable to speak for themselves. Rescuers and volunteers told their stories, often overcome by emotion. And the young doctor who had been on the scene and attended to them spoke softly and clearly seemingly without any emotion, made of sterner stuff than me. Listening and watching I briefly placed myself in the shoes of them all —victims, rescuers, witnesses, all. Like I was watching a movie.  Then I closed the page and returned to my safe, sweet, un-tragic life...