This is what I remember about September 11th 2001
I was in the shower when Mike phoned me up about the news of September 11th. At first I didn’t believe Mike, thinking that this was a farfetched joke at my expense. After getting off the phone, and drying off, I turned on my radio (I never bothered with a television while I lived in Victoria) and listened to the news. At that point, there wasn’t that much information, only that either a bomb had exploded in the World Trade Center and that a plane might have possibly hit it. Not wanting to be late for school ( I was behind schedule as it was), I ran out and took the bus. One of the guys that I went to school was on the bus, and we started to talk about what we had heard earlier. I joked, saying that chances were that Bush had orchestrated some sort of missile attack on one of the towers so that he could get more money for the Star Wars 2 system. A woman interupted us and told us that she thought that it was terrorists and that it was the start of a new war.

There wasn’t that many people at school that day. The obvious reason being the news, but the other reason was that half the teachers didn’t get paid for the work that they were doing and decided to walk out. The teacher that taught the acting course stayed outside, in the smoking pit with a bunch of students, getting his nicoteen fix with the others. We talked about the attacks, listened for news trickling in and made plans to go to a bar later that day so that we could watch the news. Lots of paranoid thoughts were tossed back and forth, with the predominant notion that a nation, most likely a middle eastern one, would be bombed into oblivion by that time next week. It felt like a dream, and every word felt like weights.

We had two classes that day. The first one didn’t involve any work at all. Mark, our editing teacher had brought the footage of the attacks that he had taped on the television earlier. I hadn’t seen anything ip to that point and I was shocked by how surreal it was. It was blockbuster verité. All throughout the day, the BBC World service would blare in the hallways and we’d get updates during our breaks.

I don’t remember much of that day, until the evening. I suppose that we went through the motions, like we normally did. When I got home, I phoned my family, asked if they heard the news and what they had thought. My mom was understandably concerned, and she told me to pray. My dad and I discussed the possible socio-political implications. After that, I phoned up my girlfriend and I told her that I missed her and I loved her.

I went to see Moulin Rouge for the third time that evening, escaping the world for a while, with a half enthused audience. As I walked home that evening, the air was quiet, with no jets flying over, and everyone seemed a little shell shocked, like zombies. I went to bed that evening, listening to the CBC. The last thing I remember before going to bed was a pilot saying that what happened was impossible and that things like this never should have happened.


What do you remember about September 11th?