While I nosh on a strawberry cereal bar, I watch many, many people die on the morning news. I happen to turn on the television minutes before United Airlines flight 175 explodes into the south tower. It is unreal, a movie, but I have to go to class. This peculiar event wasn’t my concern.
There is a buzz among the students in my 9am class:
“Did you hear?”
“Two planes, both towers.”
“.God. Really?”
“And one hit the Pentagon.”
Some cell phone calls are placed before we all head to the classroom. Parents working in Manhattan. Friends in the city. Friends of friends. Who is all right? Who is not?
Class ends early, and outside, more cell phone calls.
“My mom’s crying on the other end,” says somebody.
This is when I learn that the towers have collapsed. While I was studying Greek tragedy, two very tall buildings fell down and killed a lot of people.
I jog down to the Rat to watch people die in slow motion, reverse, “we’ll show this amazing footage one more time” detail. Then news of another flight down in Pennsylvania.
And I remember:
My parents are in a plane flying over the Atlantic, right now, as many other people in airplanes are dying. Mom and Dad are returning to Chicago from a vacation in the English countryside. I am sure they are okay. I am sure they are okay. Yes, I am sure they are fine. Everything is fine. If I can eat a strawberry cereal bar while an airplane crashes into a skyscraper, then it means I am invincible, that my family is invincible, that nobody close to me is going to die this morning, and maybe I can study for my Linguistics exam this afternoon.
In the Rat, eyes are glazed, jaws are dropped. The sky is falling. Someone, somewhere, is spamming my e-mail with a freshly skewered Nostradamus prediction: “In the year of the new century and nine months, from the sky will come a great King of Terror.” I don’t believe in Nostradamus. I think he did a lot of opium.
I go home early. I had forgotten to bring money to buy lunch, and I wanted to eat something. I don’t really care about my afternoon classes or my exam.
You know when they bring down condemned buildings-I’m talking a controlled situation-demolition crews plant explosives in strategic places so a building collapses in on itself? This is so the building doesn’t harm the buildings across the street. And the building just comes down, implodes, collapses in on itself, and all that’s left is a pile of rubble surrounded by four buildings, safe and untouched-this is my thought, and here I am sitting in a sterile room watching a sterile television. And I am eating microwaved Bagel Bites doused in hot sauce, enough hot sauce to make my eyes water and my brow sweat.
I thought about donating blood. I’m not sure they could find my veins. Or my blood. I have horrible circulation.
I start paying more attention. I realize that I spend the day breathing, and I enjoy it. This is an activity I don’t want to stop doing.
I like walking across the cool grass in bare feet. I refrain from smashing the tiny, jumping spiders that like to congregate on my windowsill.
My parents are fine. Their airplane was diverted to Canada; considering what happened, Canada is a wonderful place to be.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2001 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.