Monday 11 September 2006

where were you when....?

I’d never been one for throwing sickies, but on this day it seemed natural that myself and the group of recent graduates who I shared a house with should all stay at home.

As the dramatic, horrifying, events panned out it seemed eerie that we’d all decided not to go into work that day.

After a long lie in I’d woken up and taken a leisurely bath. I amused myself, alone, in the comfort of my bedroom, playing my favorite CDs, lazily flicking through a magazine, until I heard : ‘ OH MY GOD’ .

I rushed out of my room, my housemate was standing there, hand over her mouth, pointing at the TV screen.

The screen showed an unsteady, pixilated image of a plane, flying too low, colliding with a sky scraper, igniting on contact.

We both stood there for a while, agog. Our other two housemates joined us and stared, silently at the screen.

The approach of the plane, the moment of impact and the ignition were replayed, over, and over, cut, intermittently by reports from newsreaders.

In my naivety, I thought it was terrible accident. I mean, no-one could have done that deliberately, could they?

I left the room.

As I closed the door behind me I heard another : ‘OH MY GOD’.

I rushed back to the TV screen, the image, slightly clearer this time, showed a second plane flying into a second sky scraper.

7 comments:

CT said...

I was on my way to visit my gran (for the very last time before she died)in a mental hospital in Bicester.

It was the day before i was leaving to start university. My mum and i heard about the attack on the car radio. We were stunned. I remember the first tower going down and then the horror that the second one had also been attacked. It was a horrible day.

CT said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joanne Hartley said...

Hi mimi!

Beginnings and endings for you around that time.

It was such a strange day. Had I been at the hotel reception where I worked on that day I would have checked in several US aircrews who couldn't fly home and who had lost family and friends.

Some of them stayed for a week and spent a lot of time sitting in the bar, devastated.

Anonymous said...

i was unemployed. i was in a large, low-roofed room, dimly lit and musty - the kind of smell a flood leaves behind. the only sound was the occasional crack clunk of ivory snooker balls entering pockets and the rasp and relief of lighters meeting hand rolled cigarettes.
as events unfolded, the relative calm gave way to a united feeling of disbelief. i, surrounded by the lonely, divorced and retired, finished my afternoon pint and walked home though streets of the unaware.
i stared agahst as the voice predicts the end of the world, feeling small and insignificant at my powerlessness.
within weeks i was back in the land of the living, working hard and contributing towards the economy which would in some small way help our american brothers.
in april 2002 i would visit ground zero, hold hands with a grown man and cry.....
joel, 27, wales

Joanne Hartley said...

perhaps, my first white shirt, you should set up a blog of your own?

Joanne Hartley said...

my first white shirt -

'why don't you get a blog of your own'

not as in 'bugger off my blog and get yer own', as in 'you have a flair for writing'.

Anonymous said...

I and Jim were both at home strangely that day too - he was off on long term sick I think and he was watching News 24 or similar when it happened and called me into the room and then called me back again when the second plane hit in an eerily similar sequence of events to what happened to you (its dormerportal again, still can't remember my password)