nmah1030.xml

nmah1030.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-04

I slammed off the alarm. Six oclock was way too early to be waking up. I pushed myself out of bed, and got dressed; I ate breakfast in the kitchen, brushed my teeth, and got into the Mazda Mom was substitute teaching that Tuesday. We were listening to the radio, a rock station, like any other day in which we were privileged enough to get a ride. Had my sister and I been on the bus, we would have been listening to country music. We got a little frustrated when the announcers started speaking again, so we changed the station, figuring it was just morning show nonsense. However, each station had only announcers something really big had happened.
I have never witnessed anything like this before two planes have just crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center…. Of course, being prepared for radio talk, I wasnt really paying attention. But Mom kept it on that station, and I began to realize that this was big.
When we got to school, my sister and I sat at one of the outside tables, as usual. She settled down with some homework, probably for intermediate algebra, and I sat and prayed for the people in the towers and in the planes I had yet to realize this was a terrorist action, and thought that the planes were just flying low and had crashed by accident.
My sister and I went about our day as usual when the bell rang, we went to 1st period biology. The news was on in there; I learned more about what happened, but still didnt really know. Then, shortly after class had started, we got a note that our mother had come to pick us up; Mom never came to pick us up unless something depressing or terrible had happened. We went to the office, paranoid at what may come, but preparing for the worst.
When we reached Mom, I asked first, Whats going on? She promised us it was okay; the principal at her school had said that our district was releasing students because of what happened. When our brother arrived, we left; the car trek home was filled with questions about what had actually occurred. I was driven by confusion, but even my mother could not give the answers I craved.
At about 8:30, we had reached our destination. Mom came into the living room and turned on the television; I was still shaky, not only from what I had learned, but also from having upset myself when Mom came to retrieve us. On the television, the reporters explained everything how terrorists had driven planes into the two towers, how two more planes had crashed: one in the Pentagon, one in Pennsylvania. Now the tops of the towers were falling off, leaving much debris; I prayed that there were no people for the wreckage to fall on. Many had died; the number of casualties was not yet determined, but it was definitely in the thousands, maybe even the ten thousands. Later, we discovered that all of the planes had been headed to California, providing more fuel to feed the explosion. One thought kept racing through my mind: what kind of hatred would one possess to commit this kind of deed? I found myself perplexed; men had basically committed suicide out of sheer hatred for the United States of America.
Soon, Mom found out that school was not being closed; she returned to her elementary school, and we stayed home, as we had already missed two periods. The only thing we could see was a clip of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers; it was showed repeatedly on most channels. We finally put in a movie to end it. All we could do was pray and hope; we were three minors, sitting at home, worrying about our father, our mother, our older sister, the people who had been in those buildings, and the people who were trying to rescue others.