September 11 Diary

Dear diary,

Today something awful happened, something so horrible that I do not think that I will ever be the same. It started like a perfectly normal Tuesday. The sky was perfect, not a single cloud, it was so blue it was almost painful to look at it. I walked to work, went by the same store to buy the paper, said good morning to the old woman with the white, but at the same time gray, Bichon Frisé. The dog barked at me just as I walked pass it, just like every morning, just like it always does. The old woman had smiled and I had walked along thinking about all the stories she must have, on how she had ended up walking this dog every morning.

I went inside the building where I worked, started to open the newspaper looking for some interesting things I could read about in the elevator. Then I went inside the elevator and pushed the button, up, up to the 56th floor. The elevator played a typical elevator beat from the modest, but still quite good, speakers. I had noticed this especially this morning, thinking that this may be the day were I asked Jane out, thinking this might be the day I finally would do it, finally had the nerve to ask her. My window inside my office pointed against the Twin Towers, I had thought about the day I got this office how happy I had been about the view. On how big of a milestone it had been when I got this big office with a view. Knowing what I did now, I would have been happy about not having a window at all. I would not have this horrible picture repeating itself in my head all the time. However, this was something I did not know at 8:15a.m today.

I got to working, working on something so unnecessary that I do not even remember what it was anymore. I went out to get some coffee from the coffeemaker, which I smelled just had finished. At the way back to my office Jane went by, I remember that I had smiled and looked at my clock to have something to look at, so that Jane did not see me blush.

I remember I sat down behind the desk, just about to take a sip from the coffee cup, when it happened. It sounded like a movie, at first I did not understand what it was. I walked out against the coffee machine again, on my way I saw many faces that looked like question marks. No one said anything, we had not understood yet. Therefore I went back to my office, looked out on the same view as always. At first, I thought I was seeing visions, I saw pieces falling down from one of the towers. Then I saw something that looked like a very big bird flying right into the tower beside the other. A wave of pure power hit me, the windows were broken by the power from the explosion. I heard screaming, Jane screamed, her voice hit me first. I remember her normally so gentle voice screaming, the sound was horrifying. I will never forget the next feeling I felt. When I realized that the bird that I had seen fly into the building was not a bird, it was a plane.

I stood there paralyzed, the blue sky from just an hour ago, now seemed so gray. So full of horror, so full of shock. I did not understand how the same sky just had seemed so perfect. Now there was nothing perfect about it. I stood there in silence watching, regardless of how hard I tried not to look, I could not do anything else than stare. Stare in horror, stare into what I now know was terror. Other pieces were falling from the tower, these pieces were smaller. But before I got to look closer the smoke blocked the way

If there was one thing I was sure about, and that I am still sure about, it was that the USA will never be the same again. Just like I would never look at the old woman with the Bichon Frisé in the same way again, never see the sky so blue as that morning, nor never so gray and sad as just an hour later.

I usually never write in my diary, but after this day I needed somewhere to say that my world had changed completely, and that this was scaring me to the bone.

Sources:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/a-sheet-of-papers-911-journey/?_r=0

http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks

#september11