The world finally stopped spinning as a moist towel cooled down my forhead. My older brother, at the time 13, and me, taking an exam in my middle school. I heard “plane crash and terrorism” when I immediately phoned my brother. He did not pick up. I phone again. No answer. That’s when the towers collapse and I give out a choked yelp. My phone rings, it’s Jacob. I answer and he storms into my math class to comfort me. But nothing could comfort me now.
I remember saying in a raspy voice, “What did we do wrong? What did we do to them?”
About an hour later, my mother picks us up from school and drives home. We grab a CD and play some nice music as my brother gives us hot chocolate to sip on. But the air was thick with fear. We wept. We talked. We played Connect 4 and we played videogames.
The next days it was hard to go to school. The air was so silent…the cafeteria wasn’t noisy. Any laughter was shrill and unnatural. Maybe we were miles away from NYC, and maybe we knew they wouldn’t bomb a place like Miami, but I will never forget how hard it was to move on.
To my dearest Uncle. I found out you were one of the 200 who jumped off the WTC. You always said you wanted to fly, and you always said that if you died, you’d go down with dignity and a fine glass of scotch. Heh…the taste isn’t all bad now that I think about it.