If you remember, you can't forget.
'2007' sounds a fair far distant from the year '2001'.
6 years worth of Time, in fact.
My brain doesn't hold it quite that far away, though.
I still remember seeing the buildings and the smoke and the scrolling captioned News text across the TV screens in the Crossroads Cafe at RIT, at 8:47am ... when they still thought a stray helicopter had hit one of the World Trade Center tower buildings - an accident.
I still remember running through the RIT campus - yes, me... being the runner, the messenger, the bearer of bad news... the girl who posted signs - written-out by hand and photo-copied at her Library job - messages of sudden architectural & physical & emotional & visual & irreversible trauma, that had suddenly and unexpectedly hit the metropolitan heart of her home state... New York City, New York, USA.
... Running, because the kids didn't know.
No one knew.
Everyone that was being good, and doing the right thing - buying coffee, eating bagels, returning overdue library books, going to class, chatting with professors - all the good people not glued to a television, or who were reading SlashDot or Gmail or webcomics, instead of CNN....
They didn't know that something had happened.
They couldn't yet sense that our entire world had changed.
Changed. In an instant.
I still remember crying on Keith's shoulder, thinking for all the world that his role in Army ROTC was going to get him called up that afternoon, pulled out of college, out of my Life, and sent on some vengeful mission to pursue angry people, in other lands, yet unknown to us.
I still remember all the pictures on the News.
I still remember the buildings smoking.
The planes in places you should never see them fly.
The people who found something more terrifying behind them, inside a place so seconds-ago safe, that 90 stories of open-air fall were more welcome than anything else at that moment.
The streets of cloud. Of paper.
Of blood donors in lines to give help.....
... and not enough survivors to need all that help.
I still remember the 11th of September, in the Fall of 2001, in the US of A.
I don't write this to mourn, or to ignite commentary, or to return Past memories of pain to Present lines of History... It's just...
I still remember three days of no planes in the sky.
How weird a thing.
To remember.
.... But I do.
~
6 years worth of Time, in fact.
My brain doesn't hold it quite that far away, though.
I still remember seeing the buildings and the smoke and the scrolling captioned News text across the TV screens in the Crossroads Cafe at RIT, at 8:47am ... when they still thought a stray helicopter had hit one of the World Trade Center tower buildings - an accident.
I still remember running through the RIT campus - yes, me... being the runner, the messenger, the bearer of bad news... the girl who posted signs - written-out by hand and photo-copied at her Library job - messages of sudden architectural & physical & emotional & visual & irreversible trauma, that had suddenly and unexpectedly hit the metropolitan heart of her home state... New York City, New York, USA.
... Running, because the kids didn't know.
No one knew.
Everyone that was being good, and doing the right thing - buying coffee, eating bagels, returning overdue library books, going to class, chatting with professors - all the good people not glued to a television, or who were reading SlashDot or Gmail or webcomics, instead of CNN....
They didn't know that something had happened.
They couldn't yet sense that our entire world had changed.
Changed. In an instant.
I still remember crying on Keith's shoulder, thinking for all the world that his role in Army ROTC was going to get him called up that afternoon, pulled out of college, out of my Life, and sent on some vengeful mission to pursue angry people, in other lands, yet unknown to us.
I still remember all the pictures on the News.
I still remember the buildings smoking.
The planes in places you should never see them fly.
The people who found something more terrifying behind them, inside a place so seconds-ago safe, that 90 stories of open-air fall were more welcome than anything else at that moment.
The streets of cloud. Of paper.
Of blood donors in lines to give help.....
... and not enough survivors to need all that help.
I still remember the 11th of September, in the Fall of 2001, in the US of A.
I don't write this to mourn, or to ignite commentary, or to return Past memories of pain to Present lines of History... It's just...
I still remember three days of no planes in the sky.
How weird a thing.
To remember.
.... But I do.
~