11 September 2002
Reposted from Michele's comments:
Where was I when it happened?
I guess every generation has one of those moments. An event that crystallises in your memory, shining in the darkness of the dusty archives of things long since forgotten. It lies there, nestling in the shadows, waiting for even the tiniest of lights to be shone in it's direction, and then it shines. Illuminating the memories around it, lighting up that particular time and place.
So where was I? Well, I was at home, just outside Glasgow, ill. I'd been made redundant about two weeks before, and was working my notice period when I got a really bad throat infection. I was at home, feeling miserable, chatting to my friends on irc when one of them said "a plane's just hit the World Trade Centre".
The reaction was instant "wtf?", then a quick flip to an open internet explorer window and without real conscious thought, my fingers typed "news.bbc.co.uk". When I hit enter and the page didn't start to load within 5 seconds, I knew something was up, and I dived for the tv remote control and turned to CNN just in time to see a plane hit the tower.
I thought it was recorded footage.
I was wrong.
A cold, sick feeling started in my stomach as the commentary began to seep into my brain and I realised that I had just watched, live on tv, a plane hit the World Trade Centre.
I aim'd D immediately to ask if he knew anything. He was at work, in London, and frantic for any information to pass on to colleagues of his who were even more frantic for family, friends and colleagues in New York.
My next thought went to who I knew in New York, a good friend of mine, who I've known online for quite a while now, but I realised that although I'd been talking to him online for many months, I didn't know where in NY he lived. I hoped that he was ok, and that he was far enough away not to be directly involved.
I turned back to the tv, switching between CNN, CNBC, BBC News 24 and ITN, trying to make sense of what was happening, keep up to date with what was going on. I started to read blogs, and thought about writing about it myself, but the words wouldn't come. I phoned D every time a new development happened, because they, like the rest of the world, were hammering all the news sites or huddled round a tv, desperate for information.
I spent the rest of the day like that. Talking online, updating those who had come onto IRC and were unable to load any websites and were without access to a TV set. Switching back and forth between news channels, talking to D on the phone. Worrying when they began to evacuate the centre of London.
I have so many vivid memories of that day. The instant I turned on the TV and witnessed the second plane crash. The people falling from the buildings, the towers falling... these images and many, many more are burned into my brain, crystallised.
The most vivid thought that comes back to me, is the deep unease that I watched it all happen. On television. The obvious parallels have been drawn with x number of movies. Life imitating art. Art imitating life. Sometimes the line blurs. That day, the line was all but indistinguishable, until the cold, hard, truth hit.
It wasn't a movie. It wasn't a dramatisation. It wasn't millions of dollars worth of special effects. It was real. It was really happening.
The world changed that day.
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