9/11: a composition by Cat

I thought I was alone.
I thought I was the only one who always caught the clock
at that terrible time.
Have you ever looked up at the clock
only to see that time on your clock
and it would send a chill down your spine?

For my English class we were told to write a journal entry about a tragic event. He suggested a few and I used 9/11. Here be it:

“A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol, in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world.” (V for Vendetta, 2005)

September 11, 2001

Today was surreal. I saw the footage, I heard the screams. I heard the fall, but I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel the pain. I couldn’t smell the charred air. I couldn’t sense the panic, but I saw it. I could only see the panic, horror and despair in newscasters’ eyes, and I could hear the stress in their high-pitched voices. It takes a significant event to truly make a newscaster nervous. I can only imagine. They have had the duty of reporting many tragic stories, but this? I can’t imagine. The images must still go through their heads late at night when they let their guard down, safe within their warm beds.

I’m telling only what I remember and what emotion I have obtained since the occurrence. I was eleven then, seventeen now. I remember sitting in Mrs. Tarbox’s room studying Egyptology. The next thing I remember is seeing her looking down at the class very seriously. She informed us that something historic and tragic was happening and in short told us that a plane had collided with one of the twin towers in New York City. Perhaps she mentioned the Pentagon, or the stray plane that missed its mark, but that I don’t remember. I just remember hearing “New York City”.

We gathered in the science room, the largest room available to house the entire sixth grade. The teachers, and I presume the administration, felt it was important we see the footage of our nation’s history in action. The live footage was, and still is, worse than any rated ‘R’ movie ever created, because movies are just that: created. This was real. At first I was in shock. I thought it was a prank, a joke, a hoax. April fools. No one could really fly a plane, a huge plane, into a building, filled with people. Things like that just don’t happen. Not ever. I couldn’t wrap my eleven year old mind around it. It didn’t make sense to me then.

Over and over again and again, they showed the plane colliding into the skyscraper. Suddenly I heard the newscaster, a woman as I recall, gasp loudly then exclaim, “Dear God!” In that moment that tower became the first tower. On live TV I watched a second plane hit the second world trade center tower. It became so real so suddenly. I wanted to blink. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, speak or think. I’m not even sure I breathed. I was in such a state of shock. “It’s real, it’s real. It’s really real” was all that went through my head along with “I’m never going on an airplane”. Yes, it finally hit me. You can see things in your every day life, but not acknowledge them. It happens quite frequently, but I came to a realization: America had been attacked; America was being attacked; an attack was made on America.

For hours, days, weeks, the footage poured into every television in America, and I’m assured any other television in the world. My family and I watched the telly late into the night knowing we now lived in a changed world. We weren’t the only ones with this cold realization in mind.

Over the years 9/11 has become more and more real. I think of the countless people who tried to preserve human life and humanity that day. To the firefighters who boldly ran in when the masses poured out. To the entire community of firefighters who form the tight-knit bond of brotherhood. To the police forces who tried to keep the general public safe, organized and calm in that terrible time of crisis. To those who had no chance of surviving this tragic event. To those who ran. It’s real. It always was.

As an eleven year old, I tried to imagine myself there on that dreadful day. I imagine I feel the weight of the air and smell the horrid smell of fire that consumed all in its sight. I could feel the panic in the air laced with dread, fear and devastation. I watched as human life poured out of the building, soot and dust smeared all over these professional looking men and women. They scream and they run. They run as far as they can. Everyone around me is running. Running from the scene I can not pull myself away from. There is so much yelling and pandemonium. I hear people screaming names at the building hoping, praying that the person who belongs to that name will come stumbling out of the crumbling building. Those who do escape cry out for those who did not. My adolescent mind wonders how these people could look so terrified, so dirty, so crazed. They look like they barely escaped a war zone.

Only minutes later did I notice that the entire building was being ravished by flames. My imagination portrays my idea of how the scene looked like intertwined with fact. Fact was, it was raining. Many wished it was raining actual drops of water. No. It was not that glorious liquid from the sky. Bodies fell from the heavens. In my mind, I thought they lost their balance. Now I understand that they threw themselves out of the building. I still don’t understand completely. By throwing themselves from the high altitude they were at, did they expect to live, or was death by plummet preferred to death by fire, explosion, suffocation or being crushed? Did they not understand the hazard they made by throwing themselves out windows? I know for a fact several people died from being pelted by a victim. Maybe it was a survival instinct. Maybe I will never know. All I know is that bodies fell from the sky and in my immature mind, made the most sickening “splat” sound I could have ever imagined. I never want to hear that sound anywhere else besides in my imagination. Even then, I don’t believe it is a sound you can fully imagine but I am sure it is a sound you can not forget if it is ever heard.

I imagine the distress of the next day, September 12^th, 2001. The family, friends and general mourners gathered with flowers, pictures and questions. Many questions. I imagine papers fluttering in the breeze, dust and ash from the previous day’s travesties. In my mind I see print outs of loved one’s faces with big bold font asking if anyone has seen that person. In my imagination, I can’t see the physical ground zero. I can imagine the forces there attempting a search and rescue and the shouts of joy when someone is found in the rubble.

This isn’t anything I like to imagine or think about often. It isn’t anything discussed in detail with anyone. It’s almost like a private thought or emotion that almost everyone in America shares and just knowing that is comfort enough. There is no need to bring it up every time you think about it. It’s tucked back into the dark depths of your mind where cobwebs grow over that memory. It’s a subject discussed in schools, or in passing, yes, the facts are discussed briefly, but it proves difficult to identify with the emotions experienced on that day. Where were you when America was attacked?