lc_story195.xml

lc_story195.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-01-05

I shifted my weight in the chair. My hands fumbled with the pencil, my eyes, glancing over the few last questions of the test. Sure, I knew the answers; they were just hidden under more important things to think about. For instance, there was only five minutes left of class, and I had like ten more questions to answer. No pressure.
As I turned in my test, I noticed that I hadn't put a date on it. I picked up my pencil and filled in the box on the scantron marked date. 9/11/01.
The bell rang as I picked up my stuff. Remarks were made about the test when everyone shuttled out of the classroom. I headed down the hallway, shoving my way through people, and set my stuff down at my seat. Then, out into the hallway again.
People walked past me, but I scanned the crowd for Jessica. Then I saw her, her blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, her smile. I smiled back of course. Jessica makes you do that, smile back even if you're having a bad day.
"Hey girl! How was the test?"
"Fine, it was pretty easy," I lie.
"Ok, well, here's this," she shoves me our notebook, "Sorry, I didn't have enough time to write," she adds over her shoulder. I sigh.
As I walk into my study hall, I notice we have a sub. The second thing I notice is that the T.V is on. How strange, I think. Maybe this sub likes to watch the news. I sit down and say 'hi' to Lindsey.
The bell rings, my eyes on the set, blaring out words like "America Under Attack". I sit there, fixated. The sub says something to the extent of what had happened. An airplane had hit one of the twin towers.
The twin towers? What the heck? By the look of it, on the T.V that was, it looked to be in New York. But what? Why would anyone want to hit the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center? What makes them so special? Why not something like the Empire State building, one of the tallest buildings in the world?
It turns out, I am not the only one who was clueless. Sure, people knew that, at that time, both towers have been hit. Even one had collapsed.
It was sad. Even if I didn't know what the buildings were, they still were gone. And all of those peoples lives. Gone.
The one and only time I have been to New York was almost a year after September 11th. I remember standing at the top of the Empire State Building, looking at what seemed a normal skyline of the city. But then I noticed it. An American Flag hanging from a building that stood behind where the Twin Towers had once stood.
While in New York, I wanted to go see ground zero. Unfourtunatly, my parents thought otherwise. They did not want to go see a hole in the ground, as they put it.
But I was struggling to grasp the reality of it all. And my hopes were that if I could at least see ground zero, look over the fence with the thousands of other people, maybe, somehow, I would get a sense of the monstrosity of what two planes did to two buildings one morning while I was at school. I am still trying to comprehend the severity of what happend that one day.
I have to admit the one thing I still think about is all of those cars. Millions of people died that day, thousands of cars are suddenly empty. What do they do? How do they start the process of cleaning up? Where do they begin? How?
These are questions I can't answer. I can't begin to tell you how much I want to understand, how I want to know what it was like, having a building there, then it's gone.
This may sound weird, but I want to experience that day. I want to relive it, not on television, but through my own eyes, watch it happen from beginning to end. I want to feel the fear, running through my spine like a million volts of electricity. I want to know how it feels, to get a better understanding. I want to know what those people went through.
My whole perspective on world affairs has changed tremendously. I find myself more interested in what's going on with other countries and wondering how it will affect the United States now than ever. That could be because of age and maturity, but I think a large factor of it has to be because of September 11th. September 11th not only changed the way people lived, but the way people thought.