9/11 “Ten Seconds”
This is going to be a tough week. We will be constantly reminded of the events 25 years ago. The videos of the planes crashing, the countless still photos of streets and people covered in gray dust, the frantic searches of loved ones in the city posting pictures, asking strangers for help, and the never-ending news coverage we couldn’t help but watch that are engrained in our beings.
Several weeks after the attacks, a blurb in the newspaper caught my attention. “More than 200 people jumped to their deaths.”
It was months before I wrote “Ten Seconds.” I am sharing it now.
TEN SECONDS
I heard once that when facing a life and death situation your whole life flashes in front of your eyes. It’s true.
One moment I’m looking up at white puffy clouds that seem so close I reach out to touch them and then, like a music video editor making microsecond cuts, I hear Miss Downey calling me.
“Sarah, those white, fluffy clouds have a name.”
I was in the third grade, and the class was on a nature walk, identifying the differences between oak and maple leaves and talking about how photosynthesis makes the fall season in Pennsylvania beautiful shades of red and yellow with tiny tinges of green.
What ever happened to Gail, my classmate, friend, and niece of our teacher? And Melissa McCormick? We were best friends through sixth grade. Where is she now? We played board games before we became teenagers and graduated to slumber parties and kissing games. (How else are girls supposed to learn to kiss?)
Ah, my first real “boy” kiss was such a disappointment. Jack waited until we were standing under the 60-watt porch light before he stumbled toward me. Come to think of it, I’m not sure Jack should get credit for that awkward smooch. Maybe it was Chip or John. It wasn’t a very good kiss.
Not like Darren’s passionate embrace with lips eventually numbing and our tongues exploring first mouths, then bodies. Sexual awakening at 24 – awesome!
I blinked once, and the white clouds had floated over the buildings and were now a hazy shade of gray.
Mom had died on a gray day like today. We were both too young. At 34, she left behind three little kids. I was only nine. That day a thunderstorm had moved in and a dark sky – like now – shaded the sun.
All of a sudden, my “music video” life has a soundtrack. The rushing of the wind sounds like Niagara Falls. Whoosh!
The year before my mother died, we took a family vacation and Mom and I stood near the railing above the falls while Dad took my sisters on the Maid of the Mist, a sightseeing boat that dared to inch under and around the thunderous cascade of water. I remember taking a step back from the railing, afraid I might fall.
I was always afraid of falling. As a fifth grader walking to school, I had to cross over the old Emsworth Bridge that spanned a deep ravine. I walked as far away from the rail as possible. Rumor had it that four teenage boys thought it would be funny to push Karen, the unpopular fat girl up against the railing and pretend they were going to throw her over. They didn’t, but after I heard that I raced across that bridge every time. My heart rate must have gone through the roof.
Funny, my heart isn’t racing now. I’m surprised where my mind wanders.
Who is going to feed Fido? And he needs to take a walk after chowing down. Fido – I always wanted to name a dog Fido. By the time he was six months and responding to his name I learned that traditionally Fido is defined as “a coin with a minting error.” In TechSpeak, FIDO means “Fuck It, Drive On!” I don’t care. I love that name and I love that dog.
The wind blocks out all sound. I don’t hear sirens or screams. There are helicopters in the sky seemingly hovering in total silence. I turn my head and spot Henry who works in the brokerage office on the floor below mine. He’s a hefty guy and passes me looking like he’s doing a swan dive into the deep end of the pool.
Imade a better choice – and it was in a split, split second – I fell back like I used to when making snow angels after the first snowfall of the winter. It never hurt to hit the ground back then since we were so bundled up in our snowsuits. Plus, as my sisters and I fanned our arms and legs wide, we either caught snowflakes with our tongues or pretended the clouds were large white animals floating by. Kind of like today.
No snowflakes today. Not in September. Not in New York City. Now a layer of blackness hides the cottony sky.
That reminds me, I forgot to pick up my black dress at the cleaners. Guess I won’t worry about having to buy a new pair of shoes, not now.
I look off to my right and I’m going so fast the windows of the tower are a silver blur.
I don’t even speed in a 25 mile per hour zone, I always ski the bunny slope.
Now I’m going soooo fast. I look once more at the sky, but the clouds have disappeared. I want to see the clouds. I try to move my arm to wave away the smoke and touch the sky. When I close my eyes, I feel nothing. I’m floating.
______
In a fairy tale world, these memories would have started with “Once Upon a Time” and ended with “Happily Ever After.” You would think landmark days be included – college graduation, losing one’s virginity, wedding day, the birth of a child. Instead, my ten seconds, my last in the “real” world, relived walks to school, snow angels, and Fido.
Even though there’s nothing left of me, I hope I’m not forgotten. I was one of more than two hundred in an hour and a half’s time to “float” ten seconds on September 11th. “Jumping” is a totally wrong choice of words. One “jumps for joy” or “jumps to conclusions,” but no one “jumps out of a building high above the skyline.”
The fact of the matter is there was no time. Unless you were there, no words can make you understand and everyone that floated? Gone.