It was a sad day
I don't see how telling my 9/11 story will make any difference at all. It isn't any different than most people's, and it's far less dramatic or moving than many, many other people's stories. And as Wonkette put it so properly today: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STORY!
And yet I'm going to take a shot at it, because the fact is that nothing has ever really been the same ever since. And I know I use too many words and I know that I tend to be a drama queen about my feelings, but it's true: Nothing has ever been the same. There has been nothing but bad news for the past five years, and it all seems to go back to that day.
Well, that's only half true.....in a lot of ways it goes back to three weeks before 9/11 when I got dumped by a girl I had no business chasing in the first place. But that's a blog for a different time.
My 9/11 story starts in the wee wee hours of the morning of September the 11th, when I awoke from literally the scariest fucking dream I have ever, EVER had.
Now I'm not trying to pull some Nostradamus shit on you, but the fact is, I has a horrible, guesome, terrifying dream a few hours before the world went bad. The kind of dream where you don't exactly feel relief when you wake up......the kind of dream where you have an awful, awful feeling that something isn't right. And I'm not saying that I knew something was wrong in the world, but I did have a literally sick feeling, that something was wrong in my world.
I know how this looks on paper......and I'm not exactly saying anything, other than it was an odd coincidence. And what sucks is, if I actually tell you about the dream, you'll think I'm full blown bonkers.
In the most abstract terms I can muster, the dream was about a violent conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil (Heh, I told ya you'd think I was a nutter). But that's not the scary part.
The scary part is that the forces of almighty good and almighty evil were both being played in this dream by recently dead relatives of mine.
***ALL OF THIS SECTION HERE HAS BEEN DELETED. IT'S TOO WEIRD AND NO ONE BELIEVES IT ANYWAY ***
And then, gradually, the form faded away, until it (whatever it was) was reduced to the tall, gaunt silhouette of my grandfather, backlit against a flight of stairs.
He turned and looked at me again, but said nothing. I couldn't make out his face, but he looked impossibly frail, impossibly weak. He looked helpless. Stepping lightly and unsure, he moved towards the stair and disappeared forever.
I awoke with a start, and felt very, very afraid. And this is the God's honest truth: I was certain I had lost another relative.
Somehow I got back to sleep, and awoke some time in the 7:00 hour. I tried to shake off the bad feelings, but driving into work in Rockville that morning, I decided that I needed to check in on a few family members.
Arriving at my office, I dialed my parents while I booted up the computer and waited an unprecedentedly log time for Yahoo to load. My mom answered the phone.
"Hi, it's me.....how are you?"
"Are you watching the news?", she asked.
"No."
Of course, you know the rest.
There are so many odd images I remember from that day. The impossibly crowded roads when I left work in Rockville, around noon. The empty streets in the District as I ventured back home. The empty patio at the closed Starbucks across the street from my old apartment on Newark Street. The Pentagon, still visibly smoking, as I crossed the Key Bridge to visit a friend in Fairfax that night. And the armored military vehicle stationed on a Georgetown street, artillery pointed towards the bridge, as I came back home. The sounds of low-flying helicopters and jets patrolling the skies above Washington, which would continue on for weeks.
Yes, you know the rest.
And yet I'm going to take a shot at it, because the fact is that nothing has ever really been the same ever since. And I know I use too many words and I know that I tend to be a drama queen about my feelings, but it's true: Nothing has ever been the same. There has been nothing but bad news for the past five years, and it all seems to go back to that day.
Well, that's only half true.....in a lot of ways it goes back to three weeks before 9/11 when I got dumped by a girl I had no business chasing in the first place. But that's a blog for a different time.
My 9/11 story starts in the wee wee hours of the morning of September the 11th, when I awoke from literally the scariest fucking dream I have ever, EVER had.
Now I'm not trying to pull some Nostradamus shit on you, but the fact is, I has a horrible, guesome, terrifying dream a few hours before the world went bad. The kind of dream where you don't exactly feel relief when you wake up......the kind of dream where you have an awful, awful feeling that something isn't right. And I'm not saying that I knew something was wrong in the world, but I did have a literally sick feeling, that something was wrong in my world.
I know how this looks on paper......and I'm not exactly saying anything, other than it was an odd coincidence. And what sucks is, if I actually tell you about the dream, you'll think I'm full blown bonkers.
In the most abstract terms I can muster, the dream was about a violent conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil (Heh, I told ya you'd think I was a nutter). But that's not the scary part.
The scary part is that the forces of almighty good and almighty evil were both being played in this dream by recently dead relatives of mine.
***ALL OF THIS SECTION HERE HAS BEEN DELETED. IT'S TOO WEIRD AND NO ONE BELIEVES IT ANYWAY ***
And then, gradually, the form faded away, until it (whatever it was) was reduced to the tall, gaunt silhouette of my grandfather, backlit against a flight of stairs.
He turned and looked at me again, but said nothing. I couldn't make out his face, but he looked impossibly frail, impossibly weak. He looked helpless. Stepping lightly and unsure, he moved towards the stair and disappeared forever.
I awoke with a start, and felt very, very afraid. And this is the God's honest truth: I was certain I had lost another relative.
Somehow I got back to sleep, and awoke some time in the 7:00 hour. I tried to shake off the bad feelings, but driving into work in Rockville that morning, I decided that I needed to check in on a few family members.
Arriving at my office, I dialed my parents while I booted up the computer and waited an unprecedentedly log time for Yahoo to load. My mom answered the phone.
"Hi, it's me.....how are you?"
"Are you watching the news?", she asked.
"No."
Of course, you know the rest.
There are so many odd images I remember from that day. The impossibly crowded roads when I left work in Rockville, around noon. The empty streets in the District as I ventured back home. The empty patio at the closed Starbucks across the street from my old apartment on Newark Street. The Pentagon, still visibly smoking, as I crossed the Key Bridge to visit a friend in Fairfax that night. And the armored military vehicle stationed on a Georgetown street, artillery pointed towards the bridge, as I came back home. The sounds of low-flying helicopters and jets patrolling the skies above Washington, which would continue on for weeks.
Yes, you know the rest.
posted by t-o-n at 7:47 PM
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