September 11, 2001
I was running late. Elizabeth tried waking me, but I had already slept through two snooze cycles. Today, I wished that Superman was real; that he really existed.
Outside, it was a nice day. One of those crystal blue-sky days…ironically.
I thought it was an astonishing ill-tasted hoax, possibly a freak accident. I rode on the commuter bus, and while peering out the window, I noticed the stream of black smoke in the sky. The rooftops of Brooklyn cut off my view as to where it was coming from, but it appeared to be pretty bad. As we were about to proceed onto the highway, the bus suddenly stopped and we were diverted us onward up the street. The driver decided to announce that he was just told not to continue onto Manhattan, and was instructed to drop us off at a subway station instead. He also announced that there was an accident at the World Trade Center where one of the towers was struck by an airplane.
It was too absurd, too unbelievable to be true. Cell phones rang and people on the bus started screaming how others in the financial district were panicking and thought that the tower would topple over. There was just terror.
I clutched for my phone, and tried calling once. There was nothing but the silence of a dead line. I tried again-same thing. Finally after five times, I was able to obtain a vacant line. I woke up Elizabeth and noted briefly what has happened, and that I was coming home.
As events developed, a second plane crashed into the other tower. It was apparent that it was no accident.
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