Remembrance

So I hear everybody's posting where they were when the 9/11 attacks happened today. I was at work. I heard the news on a coworker's radio, then turned on mine to listen. There were two television sets in the gym on the first floor of our building. After the first couple hours, we took turns going down to watch. In the days after, I remember news reports saying no one believed the buildings would collapse, but everyone in my office was talking about it as if it was a foregone conclusion. It was just a matter of when. One of my coworkers had been in the Air Force. When I asked him where he thought the president was, he told me without hesitation that he would already be out of the country in flight, so I was surprised when he was in Washington by that evening.

The drive home took me past the DFW airport, and it was immediately obvious there was not a plane in the sky. That was the first time ever I hadn't seen a plane landing while driving that road, and it made me sad.

When I got home, I went to the gas station across the street and filled up. There was a line formed already by 6:00pm. I had cable at the time, so I watched news, flipping from channel to channel until night fell, and then as I laid in bed in the dark, hoping that when I woke up it would all have been a bad dream.