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| Re: wow 911 [message #171362 is a reply to message #171117] |
Mon, 12 September 2005 16:26  |
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Hydra
Messages: 827
Registered: September 2003
Location: Atlanta, GA
Karma:
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Colonel |
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Four years... has it really been that long?
I can still remember what it felt like.
I had no idea what to think.
It seemed surreal.
I had first heard it from my science teacher. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Was it another one of her stupid scenarios that she'd use to illustrate something about physical science? If it was, it was pretty twisted, I thought.
Just about everything poured forth all at once. I didn't know whether to cry, despair, be afraid, anything.
I tried to shut it out of my mind.
Think about something else. Something happy. This didn't happen; this COULDN'T have happened. Not to us, at least.
Girl sitting next to me starts crying. I glance at her with a bewildered look. I look around the classroom. Some get worried, start crying with her; others are hardly listening to the teacher.
A joke. That's it; a joke I heard on Comedy Central the night before. Think about that. It's funny; it'll make you feel better.
The future. Our future retaliation. Think about that, too. If this really did happen, I know we'll go after the bastards responsible and smash their balls into oblivion. I can already see myself watching TV and pumping a triumphant fist in the air and shout, "We got 'em!" as I hear the reporter on the screen tell us about the deaths of those responsible.
What an inappropriate time to have a confused but somewhat happy look on your face while others around me are crying, but I can hardly help it with my optimism and hope of our future victory while at the same time trying to push the reality out of my mind with a superficial joke.
No matter, though.
It's not like this could be actually happening.
How much more wrong could I have been?
I get home.
See my mother watching Fox News.
Footage of the collapsing buildings; the gigantic cloud of dust and smoke engulfing the road like a desert sandstorm; people covered in white dust like ash from a volcanic eruption; the airplane flying into the second tower....
All the blood. All the rescue workers. All the sad people grieving for lost loved ones. "She had such a love for life," says a teary-eyed man wearing glasses standing next to an ambulance.
Other sad people had similar stories to share about fallen loved ones.
So many sad people.
So much pain.
So much death and destruction.
My barrier of hope and blind optimism give way to pain, sadness and reality. I suddenly felt like I was on the news giving a story of my own.
I can't hold the tears back any more. So much sadness....
Tears stop for a second; where's Dad? Why wasn't he home yet?
He's often out of town... in New York.
Sadness gives way to panic. I ask my mother if Dad was in New York that day for business. I swore my heart stopped beating in the second before she told me no and that he'd be home that night at the usual time.
Dad comes home; we didn't eat much of dinner. We all watch Fox News together. "The mayor of New York has ordered 6,000 body bags."
"That's not gonna be enough," says my dad.
The pain and horror of it all.
I go upstairs to get ready for bed; my head starts pounding as reality takes a jackhammer to my cranium.
Start brushing my teeth.
"She had such a love for life."
Pound pound pound.
Try to put on my pajamas.
Reporter said death toll could be as high as 50,000.
Pound pound pound.
I click on the TV in my room and flip to Fox News.
More footage. More rubble. More casualties. More teary-eyed men with glasses talking about their dead wives. More suffering.
Four years... has it really been that long?
Walter Keith Koester: September 22, 1962 - March 15, 2005
God be with you, Uncle Wally.
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