Five years ago

Five years ago, today.

I still remember it.

We're not people to be updated on the news, which is a mixed blessing--mostly good with a little bad--but this time it was different. However, Daddy listens to news in the car and that's when he heard.

When he came in I knew something was wrong.

As he told the news, quickly, and with such large words I couldn't understand, Mum's shoulders slumped as she sat quietly at the kitchen table. I was confused. It didn't come clear even when he got out our book, America A to Z, and showed a picture of Manhattan. Somehow, though, I knew that the two tall buildings he pointed out, gleaming in the sunlight, were gone.

Gone. Like the airplanes from the sky or the lives of many people from this earth. Gone.

Everything was strange. Lunch was strange--everyone was very quiet and subdued. We sang a song of comfort afterwards, an old one. From our oldest songbook that has the names of the tunes, mostly in German and no title for the words.

After lunch, Mum asked us, "Do you understand what's happening?"

"No."

"The United States has been attacked. If you have any questions, you can ask me."

I did have questions, but I held my tongue. Did I really want to know? I wanted to keep my sorrow and fear inside. From my sister's questions I gathered more.

After that, I remember seeing the faces of people I knew well, but not too well, and wondered, Do they have relatives or friends in another part of the country who are dead? To my knowledge, however, my friends were spared.

Teacher Sandy told us to keep our arms in a perfect right angle. "Now, don't put your arms out like this or it'll look like an airplane going off course...that wasn't a good metaphor, was it?"

One of my classmates, Cookie, was sitting on a chair Teacher Sandy used for a ballet bar with her eyes closed, whispering.

I used to worry that Osama bin Laden was hiding behind our recycling bin in the basement, waiting to get me. He would chase me around the basement, I thought, and then kidnap me and take me to Afghanistan...and then the details were really hazy. It was a strange fear. Especially since he looked like an evil twin of my favorite uncle in my imaginings, which were nothing like real life.

All the talk about war really scared me. It happened a Wednesday night in March or April. I remember thinking really deep thoughts and keeping them to myself.

Since then, I can never see a building fall without feeling sick, even though I saw no footage or anything. Even if the building is a planned implosion or something. I think then is when I started feeling really wierd about destroying things, but especially buildings. Before then, however, I saw the Kingdome implode and thought it was exciting. Memories sicken me now.

Four years ago, they were doing Mozart's Requiem all over the country at local time of the attacks. I had the chance to go to Safeco field, but I chose not to. I don't know why; I halfway regret it now.

Five years seems like a long time ago. So much has changed.

I remember, a little over four years ago realizing that this was history in the making. Everything is history in a sense, but give it time and fiction about this time will be labeled "historical" and children who read it will be like me reading about the Vietnam War.

Just six years ago I thought living at the turn of a century was cool. But those memories will wait, for now. Later.
Saro