I'm an eighth grader at a small private school in Dallas. I have a lot on my mind; boys, band practice, the impending Earth Science test, boys, lunchtime, and boys. I really have no room in my brain for my first period computer science class, so I pull out my notebook and start doodling.
The door to our classroom opens. One of the high school teachers asks if she can borrow our classroom's television. Not as much of a distraction as we'd all hoped for, but it at least took a few seconds out of an otherwise boring lecture.
Second period. English. We're going to have a substitute today. I know because our teacher told us the day before. I hope whoever it is will let us do homework. And by "do homework," I mean "talk."
A few minutes have passed and still no substitute. We're all chatting now, hoping that maybe the school forgot to arrange for a teacher to come check in on us. Then, our middle school principle marches into the room, looking pensive and solemn. I guess we do have a teacher after all.
"Mr. Krause, are you going to be our substitute today?" one of my classmates asks. He doesn't seem to hear her.
"Something's happened," he announces, sounding shaken. "This morning, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York."
Terrorist? What's a terrorist? I see fleeting images of explosions on a television screen, but that's Hollywood. Terrorists aren't supposed to actually exist.
"You're joking, right?" someone asks. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. There's no way this is happening. Terrorists? No. Five minutes ago, today was just another day. Now nothing makes sense. How can the United States be under attack? It's just too surreal.
But it becomes real soon enough. Mr. Krause turns on the radio. We listen to reports of airplanes, full of innocent lives, crashing into the World Trade Center. We learn of the hundreds of people trapped inside the fiery buildings. We sit in a horrified and stunned silence as the Twin Towers fall.
Mr. Krause says that he'll let some of us go to the library to listen to a different station. I take the opportunity.
Outside the classroom, the hall is deserted. Members of the staff and faculty gather together in dark classrooms, watching the live coverage of the tragic events. The silence is deafening. And heavy. It's unlike anything I've ever known, and it's something I know I will never forget. That eerie stillness, that mournful silence, so heavy I feel it's weight on me as I walk down the hall. It's like trying to walk through water.
In the library, I learn of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and another that had gone down in Pennsylvania. They think it's intended destination was the White House, but the brave passengers on that plane fought back against the terrorists. I don't want this to be happening.
Now I'm in fourth period Earth Science. We've all had a few hours for the truth to sink in. Terrorists hijacked passenger planes. They flew them into the World Trade Center. The Twin Towers are gone. New York City is in peril. The world has stopped.
Our teacher brings in a television. For the first time, we watch what previously we had been forced to imagine. Airplanes fly directly and deliberately into the South Tower. Small specks, living, breathing human beings, hurtle thousands of feet to their deaths. The World Trade Center disintegrates as its buildings plummet to the ground. It takes only a few seconds for the towers to fall.
School ends for the day. Outside, the sky is empty. There are no planes in the air today. The stillness is unnerving.
Now it's nighttime. I want to go to bed and wake up in a world where today never happened, where the Twin Towers still stand, where those 2606 people are still alive and well and kissing their families goodnight. But that world is gone, and I'm not sure this new world will ever be the same.
Before I go into my room, I turn my attention to the man on television. I hear words I've never heard before; Taliban, Al-Queda, Osama bin Laden. Who is that man with the long, dirty beard and why is he doing this to my country? What have we done to ignite the kind of hatred it takes to massacre so many innocent people? I don't know the answers. Perhaps I never never will.
The news anchor on the screen now stares directly into the camera.
"Tonight, America is under attack."
September 11, 2001
Never forget.
