-- Saturday, July 17, 1999 --

------------

2:44 p.m. Taking a short break from the satellite-TV coverage of the sad story unfolding through this day. The topic on the Journal discussion list for today is, ironically enough, sadness. How do you deal with it in a public forum?

The lost plane, the luggage tags ... we don't have much news to go on. The feathery prop wash from the search helicoptors, the overhead shots of miles of empty beach.

And your thoughts go to the people on the plane: their flight, their conversation, their terror. You feel foolish, because they are not your people; they are strangers. They are mere pictures in a magazine. People of impossible grace and beauty, unless the grainy Globe caught them in a bad light. People you have never met, yet you feel pain. Something is lost and still missing.

You think back to last night, and you fly with them. The fog settles in and blankets a tiny island in its smothering grip and you can't find your way. Your small shell of a craft shivers and you are released.

Those lights blinking out, and yet the stars.

Tomorrow --