It's funny how well you can remember these great tragic things. Our parents remember where they were when JFK was shot and when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. Our grandparents remember were they were during Pearl Harbor. Someday our children will ask us where we were on September 11th and then some big tragedy will happen to them and they'll tell their children about where they were on that day. That seems to be the way life works, and it really scares me.

I not only remember September 11th, I remember nearly everying about it. I remember sitting in gym before homeroom and someone flipping on the radio and hearing some snippet about "...the crash of flight..." and then someone put on a CD so there was no more music and no more news. I asked someone if they had heard that and what were they talking about a plane crash? Everyone shrugged and went back to whatever they were doing. I forgot about it soon after that. I remember walking to homeroom and things feeling weird and panicked and I didn't know why, and teachers quickly telling us to get to homeroom as soon as possible for a special announcement. I remember thinking something had happened to a student. I remember walking down the hallway and looking in classrooms as I went, and looking into Mr. Novemsky's classroom and seeing people I'd known for years, all with the same expressions on their faces. Everyone was standing, staring up at the television with their mouths open and looks of confusion on their faces, their backpacks half off their backs. I knew something was really wrong now. I remember walking into homeroom to find people in the same state, staring up at the television. There was a picture of Washington on TV and smoke billowing up from some building I couldn't recognize. But they were talking about New York. Why were they talking about New York when the caption said Washington? Then they showed New York and all I could think was "Oh. My. God."

I think I asked what happened. I'm sure I sounded frantic. "Two planes hit the World Trade Center," someone answered. I think I might have said something like, "At the same time?"
"Eight minutes apart," was someone's distracted response.

It's amazing how naive I was. I thought it was an accident. I sat there and thought, "What a terrible accident. Two planes crashing at once. What a coincidence. What a horrible, horrible coincidence."

That was the last innocent thought I ever had.

"An accident?" I asked, "It was an accident, right?" Someone snorted at my stupidity.
"Two planes crashing into a building at the same time? No way it's an accident. They hit the Pentagon, too," they said as both the New York and Washington were shown on the screen. It's the end of the world, I thought. This is all real and it's all happening at once and we're all going to die. All I could think about was my dad. My dad was in New York and I didn't know where. My hands started shaking and I kept saying frantically, "My dad's there, my dad's in New York." I doubt anyone heard me.

Dr. Robbins came on the loudspeaker but we all ignored her. We were trying to listen to the TV. The bell rang and we left and the world felt so different than when I had walked in. I walked to history class and heard a voice saying loudly behind me, "This is it, the world is ending." They sounded like they were making a joke. I started walking faster. There were teachers shuffling from room to room hugging each other and crying. "It's World War III! Kaboom!!" the voice kept going, getting louder. I wanted to turn around and slap him. I'm embarassed to say that I thought about violence at a time like that, but I don't think I've ever wanted to slap someone so much in my whole life. I wanted to scream at him that this wasn't a joke and he wasn't helping anyone, but I didn't. I just kept going, trying to get far away.

In history we watched the third plane hit. A woman was talking while they showed the towers, she was saying, "I saw the first plane hit and I just started screaming and everyone in the office knew because I scream really loudly..." and then she started screaming and crying. I thought she was just showing the reporter what she did when the first plane hit. But now she was sobbing and asking "Why? God, why is this happening?" and then we saw the debris falling and the reporter said that the tower had been hit again and I almost felt like throwing up. A girl in class started crying hysterically while her friend tried to comfort her. The friend looked like she wanted to cry, too. I got up and said I had to go call my dad. I don't know why. I sort of knew he was okay. I didn't really think he was anywhere near the towers. I just needed to get out of there, I couldn't watch it anymore.

I came back to history later to get my things. Everyone was still sitting there, staring at the television. As I walked in the room, I turned to look, too. The first tower fell as I walked in and I didn't think it was possible to feel worse. I went through the rest of the day in sort of a daze thinking, "It's okay, everyone was out. I'm sure everyone was out before they fell, they had to get everyone out. Everyone's okay." You think really stupid things when you're in shock.

I ended up going home early. My mom was home and willing to get me and there was just no point of staying. We would just be watching the news all day and I didn't think I could handle that. We left and brought one of my friends with me. On the way to drop her off, I kept looking up at the sky. It was so blue. And everything was so quiet. I wasn't expecting that. I thought the sky would be full of dust and fighter jets and flames and that everyone would be running around outside screaming and crying and panicking, like it had been in TV. I was expecting it to be Ground Zero.

I think that's the part where I started holding my breath. Waiting for the second tower to go. Waiting for another attack. Waiting for them to find survivors. Waiting for them to find bodies. Waiting.

I went home and flipped from channel to channel, all showing the same thing. Burning. Crashing. Dying. One channel showed people jumping out of windows. I had to change to some stupid movie I hated on HBO just to get away from it. I was afraid if I heard any more I'd end up curled up in a little ball crying my eyes out and wishing it would all just go away.

The next day at school, everything seemed quieter. I couldn't help but stare at every empty desk I saw, wondering if one of my classmate's parents hadn't come home the night before.

Two days later we had our first bomb scare. I was in math class when everyone started screaming and running out of the building. I was halfway down the stairs when I slowed down and started laughing. I started laughing so abruptly that I accidently choked. It was all so completely stupid. No one was blowing up our school. Why would anyone want to do that? We didn't really matter that much. Here we were, running for our lives because some idiot was playing a prank. By the time I got outside I was still laughing, but trying to hide it as most people would think I was completely insane. Hell, I thought I was insane. Instead, people thought I was really upset and started asking me if I was alright. All I could answer was, "This is so stupid. This is just so extremely stupid."

I really wanted to do something to help. I tried organizing a supply drive at school, e-mailed Dr. Robbins, made up flyers, got people interested. By the time I could manage to even get a meeting with anyone about it, they were saying they didn't need supplies anymore. So many people had done the same thing that they had enough. I tried joining Key Club so I could do something. Didn't really work. The most I could ever really do to help anyone was donate money, which I did whenever I could. Life started going back to whatever was considered normal now. TV shows went back on the air. The trains in New York started running. Airports were open again. People got used to talk of anthrax and evacuations and war.

And now it's a year later. I can't really think of a way to end this, because I don't think it's over. We're all still holding our breaths, just waiting for something else to get blown up and the world to come crashing down again. Everything's different. Everyone's different. The New York skyline is different. I found this big poster I had from my Bat Mitzvah. The theme had been "New York" and we had taken a picture of me somewhere in Jersey where you could see the World Trade Center. On the poster I was standing and smiling and pointing at the towers. Everyone from my Bat Mitzvah signed it. I really loved that poster. After September 11th I had to hide it in my attic because everytime I saw it, I cringed.

I still cringe.