story2137.xml

story2137.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-10

The rumors started around my school at 1:00. Car bombs, nuclear weapons, and crashing planes were among the most common. I was scared out of my wits at 1:05. The faculty had made the choice not to tell us anything, to leave us out in the cold. I disagree strongly with their decision to do this, we should have known exactly when they found out. That was extremely unfair of them, but it doesn?t matter now, anyway. Besides the rumors, the other source of information was the cooking class. The cooking room had a radio in it that the students listened to until it was confiscated. They were the most frightened, but I admire them for telling the story over and over, while dealing with the internal struggle to comprehend the news. My science class started at 1:10 and I arrived promptly. The longest science class of my life. Eager to get home, scared to know. The teacher acted on her instincts and with compassion, telling us everything she knew. I remember looking around at my friends? and seeing nothing. We were all numb. The bus ride home was even worse. Junior High and High school student alike were in shock. I still remember looking up into the blue, cloudless sky and my mind being empty. Nothing, no thoughts, just plain blank. Being at home was the worst. Both of my parents work and my sister was still at school, so I was alone with the TV and my thoughts. After calling everyone, family, friends, people I kind of know, I hunkered down in front of the horrible images that displayed on the screen. Unbelievable. I hadn?t cried like that for a long time. Just tears of horror and grief streaming down my cheeks. I didn?t even bother to wipe them away, I knew more would come. I also prayed like I had never done before, like you see on TV shows and in movies. Unbelievable. My family came home at around 5:00 PM. They immediately forbade me from watching the TV. I had finished anyway, after watching footage of people jumping from the building. It was the most horrific thing I had seen all day. Never were my eyes to watch the news, or read a paper until almost two months later.


The thing that I most remember was the people falling out of the towers. It was terrible. I will always remember the way the bodies twisted and turned like heavy rag dolls as the plummeted to the ground. The people holding hands as the fell really got to me. I had nightmares of that picture for a while, and still occasionally do. God know how horrible it must have been inside the building to make them jump like that.
It is impossible to put into words how I have fully changed. But, I am no longer invincible. Life has become fragile and brittle. This is not to say that I have become depressed, knowing that doom is lurking around the next corner, in one of his many forms. Contrarily, I have become happier, more fulfilled. I don?t fear death, but accept it as part of life. Being on this Earth is only one part of truly being alive.