They set up a television playing the news in the Student Center, by the Unispan, and a small crowd of students gathered around it, staring. The second tower had collapsed in the time it took me to get from my car to the Center.
My Intro to Philosophy class had a low turnout, but administration had not yet officially canceled classes–so tossing aside his lecture notes, my Philosophy professor asked us, “Why would someone fly a plane into a building on purpose? What kind of beliefs does it take for a human being to do that to other human beings?” We discussed and debated this for the duration of the class.
If you climbed to the top of the Library tower and looked out the western windows, you could see the smoke, dark against the obscenely blue sky. Driving home from school, it was hard to resist the temptation to watch the sky. It was so clear that day, but seemed to be menacing with hidden dangers. We didn’t know what else might be coming.
A month or so later, a plane crashed in Queens. Later we found out it was just pilot error, but nobody knew that at the time–everyone thought the attacks had begun again. Several students left my Linguistics class in hysterics.
Comments (2)
I was young and immature enough still to not quite understand what was happening. I liked this. I like how there is still a connectedness even to this day that has come out of what happened.
I’ll never forget either. For several hours I thought my parents might have been at the towers.