story9529.xml

story9529.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-09-10

I was sitting in my Microsoft Word class at Potomac Falls High School when suddenly over the intercom the principal instructed everyone to turn the televisions to channel 7 ABC. At first when I saw the burning building with a plane sticking out of it I thought it was just a movie on TV. It wasn?t until we turned to every channel did we realize what was going on. At first the class room sat in shock and then people started freaking out. After an hour when the next plane hit the pentagon is when things started getting ugly. Classmates were being pulled out of class to go home, students were demanding to leave, and teachers wanted to make phone calls. After a few hours of watching TV the principal came on the intercom and told everyone to turn off their TVs and return to normal. Needless to say no one returned to normal. Everyone around me was talking about how they were afraid that bombs would start dropping or how schools would be the next targets, I just sat in silence. I couldn?t understand how hijacking a plane and flying it into buildings made any sort of statement at all. Only cowards would do such a thing. After school I went to my best friend?s house and decided to crash there for the night. We talked about what we thought was going to happen the next day. Neither of us was scared but we just had that uncertainty of what was to come. The next morning school was canceled so we slept in. When I finally woke up I went out on the balcony and listened. Not a noise was to be heard, and that was unusual for where I live. I live about twenty minutes away from the Dulles Airport and there is always air planes flying by. But there were no air planes in the sky, or many cars on the road, or people on the street. Just people in their homes uncertain of what was next.