Vancouver, B.C.
I didn’t watch the news or listen to radio before work that morning and was rushing out the door. On my way out and in the lobby of my building, I saw someone talking my landlord, who ignored me; usually he gave me a friendly hello. I overheard this person saying something like a plane had crashed into the the World Trade Center. I brushed it off, thinking she was talking about a movie or the time a bomb had gone off there.
I walked to work in the dark, brisk air. When I arrived at the office, one co-worker was there and she greeted me with the usual, “Good morning!” We sat at our desks and began to work.
Then another co-worker came running in asking us if we had heard the news. We hadn’t. She told us that the U.S. was under attack. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and all of Manhattan was covered in ash. I was shocked. I went on the Internet and read all the details, that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and one in a field in Pennsylvania. I phoned my family in Ontario. They closed down the CN Tower. I was worried because they were closer to New York than I was.
The co-worker who initially told us about the attack turned on the TV in the staff room to watch news updates. She kept running back into the front office saying things like, “L.A’.s been hit!” and “They’re in Seattle!” I was terrified. I started crying a little and told my co-worker I was scared. Were there more planes that were going to attack?
It was reported that all the planes in the world were grounded but I heard a dull roar somewhere from above. I went outside and looked up, way up, and saw a fighter jet, a black dot against the bright, blue sky. My boss was stuck in the Yukon. She later told me she saw two fighter jets escorting a passenger plane to land and she didn’t know what was going on. She was so scared.
We had to stay the whole day at work, answering phones as if nothing had happened. I looked out the window at some school children who were laughing and talking on the sidewalk. Did they know what had happened? When I went home that night, I couldn’t stop crying. I thought to myself, “What was this world coming to?”
blaak sheep 