Americans all have their stories about 9/11. Where they were, who told them. I have mine. I was in a suburban middle school; I’d never been to New York. I was in Home Economics and they had an announcement over the intercom, saying would all teachers please send a student up to the main office right now to carry a message. We all waited for a minute and then a little girl came back with a yellow piece of paper and the teacher read it and I’m pretty sure I was the only one who saw her cry a bit just then. Then she turned on a TV and we watched the news.
Then the bell rang for the next class and we all shuffled on. I went to English class where my teacher called them bastards and motherfucks, and then he turned on the news too and we watched as the second plane hit and a girl near me screamed. My teacher, he was this tall, thin, quiet person, he just sat in the back at his desk and muttered bastards, motherfucks. I don’t really know what else he could have done. We were twenty middle schoolers being faced with the sublime. We watched people jump and fly out of the towers and one girl cried, but most of us were quiet because we didn’t know what to do.
Then there was another announcement over the intercom, which said that they were going to let out school early. They rang the bell and we all came out and all our parents were there, cars lined up into the distance, waiting to get a hold of their sons and daughters, hundreds of miles from the crash, they needed us safe and in hand.
1 comment:
I was in music class when an alarm started to go off. It was just the sound used to signal the end of class, but it went on for a few minutes. We all joked that aliens were taking over.
Later on I was in choir and the principal got onto the intercom and told us "there is a national emergency but you're all safe." Kids kept getting picked up by their parents. Of COURSE I was flipping my shit because I had no idea what was going on, all I knew was that something horrible was happening in NYC and DC and that my father worked in DC. I started crying in the hallway. I went to the school counselor who didn't help me at all. I remember it with anger but then again I guess she really didn't know what to do, either.
I don't like the fact that they withheld the information from us. We're going to freak out anyway, it's better if we have some concrete information to deal with. I didn't know exactly what happened until I got home from school.
I guess everybody has to live through something. They talk about old people and how amazing they are - they've lived through two World Wars, they've lived through Pearl Harbor, they lived through the Holocaust, etc. One time I actually caught myself thinking about how great it'll be when I've lived through a bunch of major events. I guess everybody has to live through something, but the truth is it might be better if we didn't have to. It might be better if I didn't live through 9-11. It might be better if I don't live through a situation where I could be the next to go. I guess everybody has to live through something, though.
That night before I went to bed I was at the bottom of the stairs with my mother and I asked her what she thought the history books were going to call it. She said she didn't know, but everyone was going to remember it forever and ever.
I guess they're calling it 9-11.
Post a Comment