A day late and a dollar short

I kind of wanted to post this on September 11, but then everyone was posting things, so i thought I didn't want to be a sheep... OK it doesn't really make sense, but anyway. I wrote this freshman year of college. The assignment was "most memorable experience."

“we can not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground”

September 11th, 2004: I slept through the moment of silence. I slept through the times when the planes crashed, I slept through the times when the buildings fell, I slept through the five miles I walked home. September 11th, 2003: Our principal announced the moments of silence over the loudspeaker, and from our open-windowed classrooms, we heard the names being read four blocks away. September 11th, 2002: Someone read the Gettysburg Address. We watched the ceremonies on TV during classes and “wrote down how we were feeling today.”

September 11th, 2001. It was the third day of school, and it was a beautiful fall day. I was in a bookroom on the 5th floor getting Latin textbooks when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. While leaving the bookroom, my volleyball coach told me that you could see a hole from a window that faced south. I looked, surrounded by classmates and teachers. From six blocks away the hole looked small and no flames were visible. Five minutes later, the disembodied voice of our principal announced that “a small plane had hit the World Trade Center.” On the fourth floor, when I returned to Latin, the teacher gave up trying to teach and turned on the TV.

A couple minutes later, we were told to go to homeroom. My homeroom was on the 8th floor and in the northwest corner, completely opposite the World Trade Center. Neither the TV nor any cellphones worked. Time passed in miniscule increments. Periodically the loudspeaker would speak. According to it “the safest place was in the school” and long minutes later, that we should “get out now.” Following the evacuation plan as taught, we walked down the stairs. 3000 thousand people walking down. It smelled of smoke and sweat. It was silent except when the first tower fell, the ground shook and the lights went out for seconds. I imagine that it felt like an earthquake.

Outside the south windows of the Lobby, a cloud of smoke and paper rolled down the street and blocked the sun. Fireman and paramedics were entering the Lobby from the South Entrance making the school a triage and rest center, while we left the school from the North Entrance. One fireman entered, covered in white ashy dust. He fell to his knees near a stairwell. Someone handed them their waterbottle. A paramedic came and stood over him silently. He drank, still kneeling. I felt like an intruder for watching, for invading his private moment.

Now the subway station at the World Trade Center is open. I took the train down there a couple weeks ago. Tourists still take pictures. They stand on the viewing platforms - even wait hours to see. To take pictures. It is only a pit now. The resting place of thousands of people. And while some battlefields are accusingly beautiful, this one is not. It is a scar that looks empty.