compie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- about a year from that day. When i woke up, i turned on the tv, and it was about september 11th. I should have suspected that.. As i recall, i dont remember writing about the event itself, probably because that day itself was so overwhelmingly...existant. I never really quite had the urge to go to the computer and type it all up. I feel like it now, probably because I feel a certain nostalgia of last year in general, and i want to expand on that for some reason. Of course, all my experiences were purely personal. But, as we all know, sept. 11th was not about any one person, but about everyone in america; I'm only a single thread in the tapestry born on that day, the one as big as america itself. And i dont know how to say anything without sounding sappy. I remember that day, English class was going pretty average. I dont even remember what we did in english that day. In geometry, our principal (or maybe hes vice..) came on the announcements, saying that " a plane has crashed into a new york trade center". We all dismissed it as a small hole in the world trade centers that was accidentally caused by a amateur pilot. A couple minutes later, he went back on the prompter-thing, and said that a second plane had crashed into the second building. Now, we all knew that it was not a mistake. Still, everyone in our class thought it was just a couple holes in two massive buildings that could be fixed and forgot about in a couple weeks.. There was no tv in that room. It wasnt until spanish class, my 3rd period, that Mrs. Hiteshew told us that both buildings were leveled..as in..not there anymore. This, i had trouble beleiving. It was like someone had told me that the pyramids in egypt or the taj mahal or the capital building in dc had just vanished. I hadnt even begun to fathom everything else that came with the fact that these two buildings, along with countless people with countless lives, were now gone. Soon, people were being dismissed from school. The students were all confused and scared of why this may be. I knew that i wouldnt be dismissed early, because my mother wouldnt have found out about the attacks until a many hours, because she was watching her shitchannel, which likes to think that their "godly" programming is more important then whats going on in the world right now. Mrs. Hiteshew was slightly amused at our wide-eyed confusion, and gave us a ditto to do. She then said, through a sarcastic smile, something as i remember it being, "thats right, the end of the world is upon us and im making you do spanish work." I remember dizzyingly looking at the paper, dizzy and incoherent from a sudden realization of many things. A little while later, we were all rounded into the cafeteria, for an early dismissal. The buses came, and i asked around for the bus that would drive me to johnny cake. i took that bus, and ended up at johnnycake elementary. It was a hot humid day, temperatures reaching about 89-92 degrees, a clear sky with no chance of rain. As soon as i got out of the bus, i saw many parents waiting their already for their kids, and all their friends getting a ride home from them also. Each car was packed, so i didn't even bother asking anyone for a ride. I just stood there for a little while...Staring at the quite empty johnnycake elementary, trying to figure out the way to get home. I knew there was a shorter way through the inside roads, but i was afraid of getting lost. I only knew how to get home using the main road because thats how we get home everyday in the car. So i followed route 40. I hummed "its the end of the world as we know it" and thought of matt, when both of us were singing that in geometry as we heard the news for the first time.. I was surprised at how many songs took on an entirely new meaning after that hour. I was about to faint of the heat. Dizzy and comatose to the point of collapsing, i enter the westview mall, and am entirely grateful for air conditioning in that building. I go through the mall as a means of a shortcut, but i dont want to leave the cool building for the painfully bright and hot outdoors. Finally, i leave. I only looked down, on the changing pavement. I didn't want to look up and see the confusion in everyone elses faces be the exact same as mine. I crossed many streets, almost got run over a couple of times. I remember having people stop for me, and offer a hand gesture telling me to go on ahead. They all had a look of sadness on their face. I was just another reminder of the confusion and change that day. Finally, getting closer to the house, I went into Sorrentos for a cup of water. I drank it slowly and tentatively, happy that i finally had an intake of something, i continued home. I was closer now..I passed toy r us, and came into more familiar territory. As i was passing the community pool, my mothers car came around a bend and stopped. I was happy to finally sit in padded seats with air conditioning. I came in and she yelled at me for not staying in school and waiting for her to pick me up. I couldn't even talk to her. i was furious at the fact that her tbn or whatever channel was more important than everybody else in the whole fucking world. She turned it into my fault, that i hadnt beenwhere i was supposed to. She had found out about everything about an hour or so after school had been evacuated, and it angered me that she did not even think about what i went through to get home. She had only been looking for me for about half an hour..probably when i was in sorrentos is when she even found out about anything. Finally, when i was home, i turned on the tv, and it didnt matter what channel it was. Everyone showed the exact same image. The picture of the two collapsing towers covered in smoke. The picture of lives being thrown off the huge heights, their bodies flung into the blueness that contrasted the destruction only inches away..it was horrible. Nothing that happend to me that day mattered, except what happend to many other people. The next day i didnt go to school. I just..didnt want to. I had to sit and peacfully think of what had happend without being forced to turn my head and do more work or talk to more people. The next day, thursday i think, i went to school. After spanish, i sat down and a group of girls from my class asked if they could sit with me. One girl then asked me if i was afghanistanian. This both shocked and offended me. She asked me if i was on the side of the taliban. I could see the ignorant racism in her face, and i was so shocked i didnt even know what to say. Of course i wasnt "on their side". I was one of them. It hurt a lot to be asked that because of the color of my skin. I said of course i wasnt on their side. Each of the cheerleader-girls let out an inaudible sigh and proceeded with more questions, as if i would have known anything more about it then they did. I told them saying that i was a terrorist was about as ludacris as saying that mahatma gandhi was just as much as a maniac as saddam husain. The one girl, a philipino who i was most shocked to hear the reaction from, said she didn't know who either of those people were. This is where my disrespect and hatred towards the majority of western students originated from. Now a year has gone by. And so much has happend in a year. With everyone. People had changed, others have stayed the same. I remember reading in someone diary "beauty is an odd thing,every little girl seeks only to feel beautiful. But if you look at all those faces plastered on walls near ground zero, were any of them ugly?" I think you know the answer to that question 10:50 a.m. - 2002-09-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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