I was conceived and designed to be the tallest. Everyone wanted a piece of me (and my twin): taking pictures, walking a tight wire from one end to the other; reserving tables at Windows on the World (Carpenters’ Top of the world on muzak) then using commercial jet liners to hit me and my twin, to burn and bury us. Inadvertently turning us into a mass-grave complex complete with waterfalls, shaded tree lines and of course, WTC memorial. Even scrap metal (what’s left of us) were salvaged to build the USS New York or sold to BaoSteel.
On our last day, we saw the best and the worst: footsteps going down and footsteps going up (Emergency workers’). People ignored people, people helping people and media people covering people in trouble.
Who would have thought! There will never be a Tuesday in September that comes close. An otherwise crystal clear day, when people was about to take a post-summer vacation (nicer weather), or back from a vacation and people who had their eye glasses upgraded (as in the case of the WoW restaurant owner). People attended seminar (or too lazy to attend it hence survived like the owner). Thousands of little everyday decisions: attending an Elementary reading session (Potus), complying to Oracle’s business trip (Todd Beamer). Travelers crisscrossed the country on thousands of flights. Big country. America the Beautiful.
Meanwhile, there were a total of 19 of them. Laying low. Cell by cell of sleepers. Ordering pizzas and call girls. Attending flight schools, obtaining driving licenses, renting mailboxes and buying first class tickets, all financed from our oil addiction, sitting near the cockpits. Near the flight control gears. Avoid detection, avoid rousing suspicion. Early in the month, they took a surveillance flight, to finalize their fourth target: the Capitol or the White House, with made up minds about me and my twin. After all, we were the tallest, most iconic and visible landmarks hence top-mind.
Passengers were subdued, planes commandeered to become weapons of mass destruction. Imagine just a truck plowing through a crowd, much less a plane – full of jet fuel (intended for an East-West coast route). Sit back, and relax. Right! Attention: you have been hi-jacked. We will deplane you as soon as possible (when and if our ransom demands are met – we would have thought! ( before that, it would have understood just that way).
When shit hit the fan, all hell broke loosed: elevator shafts stuck, people jumped, screamed, hid under desk or ran down the stairs (leaving phones behind). A few stopped to help a lady in the wheel chairs, down 46 flights, to safely be driven away in an emergency vehicle. FD Chaplain ran up, along with NYC fire crew. As portrayed by Nicholas Cage, many of whom were stuck when the towers crumbled, never to be found. Others got recovered and rescued from the rubble. All-hands were on deck. Lives shattered, dreams delayed and loved ones missing.
Have you seen him? Here is her picture. Photos of the most wanted plastered next to photos of the most loved. On fences and posts. Me and my twin, or what were left of us, turned make-shift information centres. Widows of the world, once always looking-at the rest. Now, the rest looking at us.
It’s been twenty years since. On that spot, sprung life, trees and water falls. Tower and tickets (parking). “People bowl and pray, to the neon god they made”.
Me. “my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence”.
I stay in awe at the depth of depravity. Inspired by the height of heroism. How can people who did not look at each other in the eyes (not when you are in a crowded elevator, whose Sliding Door slammed automatic, just like in the movie – at shoulders touching, riding up and down 110 stories with frequent stops), turned in an instant to be so “humanly” with each other. People hurting people. People helping people. Who are we to trust.
Free will is elusive. O’ Neill was with the Bureau, retired and took a job as Towers’ security chief. Only to die on the job at the depth of that destruction. Cause? Our failure of the imagination (besides failure of intelligence). Ten years later, it took an Executive order to take out Bin Laden. The job of the President of the United States, ranging from reading a book to school children in Sarasota, FL to ordering “Take the shot” at the compound in Pakistan (via satellite feed).
After id the body, perhaps taken a photo, the SEAL team bagged their acquired target (Geronimo) and dropped it mid air in remembrance of those WTC falling men. Eye for an eye, as well versed by today’s Taliban hardline leader. After all, many WTC workers jumped heads first – straight down – to escape certain death in 2200 degrees boiler rooms. A high-speed shutter camera captured their free falling, looked as if they were suspended at mid air without a bungee rope.
The emergency stairways that day saw many hurried footprints. Mostly heading down. A few up. Then everything imploded. Incinerated. Burned and buried. As if to archeologically cover our shame and sorrow.
No longer business as usual over a cup of coffee at the Today Show, or on Wall Street with ticker tape running, traders shouting and elevators humming; people hurrying past , divorcing or returning to each other’s arms ( after a long commute.)
Instead, we saw a beginning out of that end, venturing into the Unknown unknown, from us, the known Towers. The famous ones that our French climber walked his tight wire briskly in exhibition and with pride. Human free will. Human free fall. Human most dangerous gift from God: to choose between good or evil. From the Garden (Gethsemane) to Ground Zero; to sell out for 30 pieces of silver or to give one’s life for others.
We’d love to stay around a little bit longer, but time was up. Being the tallest and all, we once were the talk of the town… everyone wanted a piece of us.
Thang Nguyen 555 