The times they are a-changin’.
This post seems to be older than 18 years—a long time on the internet. It might be outdated.
I slowly awaken, the distressed voice of Katie Couric is in my head. I’m in that dreadful state between dreaming and waking, where my subconscious is aware again, but doesn’t want me to know it.
“A plane has hit one of the World Trade towers.”
“Shit.” My subconscious realizes it’s time to stop fucking around and divert my full attention to the present reality.
I’ve been sleeping on the couch the last few weeks because my room is being remodeled.
The smell of breakfast begins to fill the air.
It should have been just another Tuesday, the start of another school year, my sophomore year of high school actually.
It’s not even six AM yet. Why I am I awake? As I gather my thoughts, the events of that last two minutes start to click together like individual frames of a motion picture being run at full speed for the first time: Mom coming into the living room. Mom turning on the TV. Mom waking me up.
I’m helpless on the west coast. So far removed, yet affected all the same. An ultimate hell? Almost.
A million thoughts run through my mind, trying to make heads or tails of the situation. What if…? What if…? What if…?
The clock strikes 6:03:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time. Another plane hits the other tower.
“Fucking shit!” I whisper to myself, under my breath.
It was surreal. A scene from a movie, the greatest hoax of all time.
No. It was now…it was live…it was 1461 days ago. It was the 11th of September, 2001.
The remainder of my day was filled looking at the sky. Evaluating targets. Seattle was a pretty good target, I thought to myself over and over. I was convinced we were next. Microsoft. Boeing. Gateway to Canada. Layover from Asia and Alaska. Shipping ports. Train stops. Technological infrastructure.
I’m glad I was wrong. I’m usually pissed when I’m wrong…but I’m glad I was wrong this time.
All the sophomores meet in Mark Hoover’s music room on the second floor of the new Arts Center. We talked. Colin said something about different classes of air space, not that it meant anything now. The sky was dead. Nothing moving. A sudden population increase on the grounds of the BrokenUnited States of America.
They made a movie called The Day the Earth Stood Still. I never saw it. Maybe I will. But for me, for my movie: this was the day the Earth stood still…and I stood still with it.
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