I had just awoken in Fort Collins, CO. Groggy, I reached over to my cell phone which was ringing my head to wake. It was my friend Mac. "Dude, turn on the TV!" I didn't know how to respond, especially since I had no TV. "A plane just hit one of the Twin Towers in New York." What. I popped up and headed straight for the basement where my computer was online.
I immediately opened www.cnn.com and read about what Mac just told me. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. I couldn't get the news fast enough. I was search in the news relentlessly trying to find out what was happening. Apparently, so were about 250 million other people. The internet was stuck.
I had to work.
I swallowed hard and made the long walk back upstairs to my room, got dressed and hopped in the car. The radio. I turned on the news and listened as witnesses described the smoke billowing from the Twin Towers. At this point, the other plane had already hit and both towers were damaged.
My phone rang again. My dad was on the other line. I started weeping almost uncontrollably. To this day, I'm not sure why it was this phone call that put me over the edge. I wanted to fly to NY immediately. Instead I pulled into the parking lot at work and walked upstairs to my desk.
No one was really talking, more just huddled around the few desks that had radios. Silence. I felt it so real that day. The news caster spoke of smoke and mayhem and mass confusion. Then he said the first of many shocking things that day. People were jumping out of the 90th floor of their buildings to escape the flames. The 90th floor. Tears streamed down my face.
The first tower collapsed. I sat there not thinking, only feeling. There were no words. My heart was coming through my chest. Did I know anyone working in NY. Yes. Were they OK...? I didnt' know.
Still silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Drip. Drip. Drip, My eyes were soaked with tears.
The second tower collapsed. Silence persisted around the office as no one had anything good to say. It was surreal. 2500 miles away, something terrible and real was happening and I had no idea how to react or how to know what to do. Nothing.
I went home and just thought about the people stuck in the aftermath. I cried and cried and cried thinking of the firefighters and doctors and police officers and nurses and workers and employees. I cried and cried and cried. For three days I cried. I don't think I accomplised anything in those three days. I just read about the people and their families, about the Pentagon and the field in PA near where I went to Grad school.
These were days I'm glad to remember but that I'd love to forget.
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