I drive to work, leaving the house around 7:40. Expecting pressure at the office, I switch off the radio and listen to Vaneglis’ Oceanic. Insulated from the hectic traffic, I arrive calm and focused, ready to start the day.
Dan and I start across the street. A skinny, bearded man with wild hair scuttles toward us. “Somebody’s crashed a twin-engine plane into the side of the World Trade Center,” he says, out of breath.
Dan and I wonder aloud about terrorists, but decide — given the “twin engine” comment — that the crash must involve a sight-seeing flight. Once upstairs, we start work.
Minutes later, I receive a page from a tardy employee: “I was watching television just now,” Veta says, “and another plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”
I try to browse cnn.com, msnbc.com, and other news sites. I get one image from msnbc.com — the shattered side of one Trade Center tower — before all the news-related websites are overwhelmed with traffic.
I also learn the tragedy involves commercial jet lines.
I head up to the eighth floor, where a knot of sales reps gather around a portable television, and learn one of the two towers has fallen. The shock silences most of us, except for one or two people who react to the stressful news with bizarre giddiness. Their inappropriate laughter is especially loud in the quiet conference room. “Did you cause this?” they ask my boss. “Did you set all this up to get us off work?”
Downstairs, Shane hooks up an antenna to the FM tuner in his office. As our grandparents must have done, my team huddles around the radio, straining to hear the news. Peter Jennings mentions the second tower is about to fall. He stops short. “There it goes,” he says. “It’s not possible to put it into words.”
Sharron cries. Nicki prays. Most of us wander from office to office, needing some sense of direction. I retreat, unsure what to do, and try (without success) to focus on the design of two web pages due today.
Finally, my boss calls to send us home. Dan, Sharron, and I meet Clyde at the Thai House, where, in place of the usual Thai music, Mama plays the radio. Except for one other table, are the only customers in the place. The scope of what just happened begins to register. We talk about the careful planning required to select these highly visible, deeply American targets. We talk about our feelings of disbelief: the Trade Centers are gone, just memories and rubble. We wonder if we are going to war.
Our food arrives. We find ourselves sitting, staring, saying nothing. It takes us a minute to realize we are waiting for someone at the table to lead a prayer.
I finally do. At the end of the prayer, Sharron crosses herself.
The four of us eat our pad thai and larb gai, listen to the radio, and stare out the window at our little corner of the United States.
Image Credit: National Park Service. This image is in the public domain.
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