Kerry Doyle

Professor Peek

English 101 Essay #1 Draft #3

10 October 2006

 

That Fateful Morning

            Did you ever have one of those mornings? The ones where you don’t want to get out of bed? This morning was one like that. I had an ominous feeling, and I knew it was going to be a bad day. Against my better judgment, I got up and began what soon turned out to be a day I will never forget. This was the only time in my adult life that I felt lost, afraid and unable to understand what was going on around me. For me and the millions of other New Yorkers, September 11, 2001 was a day we put aside our differences and forgot about the cultural barriers that divide our city every day. We faced what would be the most horrific act of terrorism our nation has ever seen.

            After I had gotten myself ready for the day, it was time to raise the dead; in other words it was time to attempt the next to impossible task of waking my twelve year old daughter for school. She got up without too much of a fight, which was unusual. After getting ready herself and having breakfast, she ran for her bus and I left to meet my friend Judy. Judy and I were meeting some friends in Manhattan, and we needed to catch a train. I never enjoyed the train in the morning. During rush hour, the train can feel like being in the center of a riot. One attempts to move through the sea of commuters only to find there are no seats left. This goes on car after car, searching for a seat from one end of the train to the other, only to come up empty handed in the end anyway. It almost doesn’t seem worth it.

            As we arrived at the station, the train was already barreling down the tracks. I knew it would be just a few minutes before the wheels screeched to a halt and the fight to get through the doors began. As soon as we boarded, like all the other commuters, we began to make our way through the vast sea of people, in search of a seat—or at least a comfortable place to stand. We both, just like the others before us and the ones yet to come, came up empty handed. We stood somewhere in the middle of the sixteen car train, sandwiched between the back of a seat and two steel poles.

            The train ride seemed long and I could barely breathe. The smell of sweat and cheap cologne started to make my stomach turn. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to ride the peak trains every morning, but I guess the business men who do get used to the smells of the morning commute. After what seemed like hours but was really only about thirty-five minutes, the train pulled into the station in Woodside. I always got excited when we reached the Woodside station, not only because a few seats would usually become available, but also because it meant that our long uncomfortable train ride would come to an end; we would soon be in Manhattan.

            We finally pulled away from the sign that read “Welcome to Woodside, New York.” Within five minutes our train was beginning its descent down under the ground, into the tunnel that carried us beneath the water that separates Long Island from Manhattan Island. It was all so familiar, the train descending into darkness, the lights on the train beginning to flicker until they go out, and the passengers moving around trying to collect their children or belongings in the pitch black darkness of the train. It was the same scene I had watched many times in my life, every time I rode the train to the city, until it stopped. The train just stopped.

            This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d done this a thousand times before. I knew the routine as if I were driving the train myself. The train was supposed to fly through the tunnel and begin to slow as we reached Penn Station; coming to a stop just long enough to let the train before us pull away from the platform. Then it would roll up to the platform, let us off, and pull away so the next train could do the same. It was at that moment I realized we were going to be hit by the train behind us. How were they going to know to stop? What if the driver can’t see in this darkness? A million little questions frantically ran through my mind. I couldn’t imagine the engineers’ radio would work under water. I reached for my friend in the darkness, and that’s when I heard the man in the trench coat. He’d been sitting across from me, and I clearly heard him say “There’s a bomb on board.” The conductor had told him a bomb was on the train.

            I sank back into my seat, trying to make sense of the words this man had said. A bomb was on board the train. I couldn’t grasp the reality of these words. They almost didn’t make sense. I knew what he was saying, but somehow my brain wasn’t making sense out of them. People were scurrying around the train car; I don’t know what they were trying to do. Maybe they were looking for more information or just trying to find comfort in one another. I couldn’t imagine they were trying to get off the train; in a tunnel under water there really wasn’t anywhere to go.

            My heart was racing; fear was building up inside of me. I started wondering if the bomb exploded inside of the train; could it blow up the tunnel? If we didn’t die from the explosion, we would surely drown. I thought about how I would rather take my chances with this train being hit by another train, like I had been thinking earlier.

            Passengers were trying to use anything they could find to light up the train car a little. I searched around to see if I could see Judy’s face in the crowd. I looked across from me and saw a little girl I had recognized from earlier. She had long dark hair in braids and her freckled face was stained with tears. She was searching for her father. I remember him calling to her just after we learned of the bomb. “Amanda,” he said “just stay in your seat, I’ll be right back.” I began to think about my own daughter Katie. I remembered complaining about having to wake her for school. I wondered if I would ever see her again.

            The time that we spent in this train felt like days. People were crying, screaming and praying. There was a lot of praying. I just sat there. Never got up, never cried, screamed or prayed. I just sat and thought about things. I was trying to process everything that was happening. It had actually been about two hours that we were on that train. The conductor was walking down the aisle; I heard him say something about pulling into the station. The train slowly began moving; people were pushing against the doors. I suppose they were all trying to be the first one off. It never seemed to take so long, to get through the tunnel, as it did now. The train pulled up to the platform, and an announcement came over the speaker; “We have just arrived at Pennsylvania Station, although we no longer feel that there is an emergency on board the train, the police will be here momentarily to escort all of the passengers off of the train.” After all we had been through; we were forced to wait once again.

            The police eventually arrived and one by one we were escorted off the train and herded behind a roped off area. I started to notice other people behind ropes along the platform and a lot of police. Eventually, we were ushered in small groups, up several flights of stairs to the ground level of Penn Station. There were thousands of people up there and many of them were crying. I looked at my friend; she had the same confused expression on her face as I knew I had on mine. I had never seen anything like this, nobody was going anywhere. There were announcements that all trains and subways weren’t going to be running until further notice. We went out the doors onto Thirty-Fourth Street, there was smoke everywhere. The city had been swallowed up inside this smoke. I did all I could to breathe. I just stood there with my friend and watched the chaos unfold around us. It was if the apocalypse had just begun. Nothing made sense anymore. I again began to worry about my daughter and the rest of my family. If this was the end of the world, I wished that I was with them instead of in the middle of Manhattan. The fear that had been building up inside of me finally took control. I began frantically searching for a phone that worked. I started to scream and cry, just like the other people around me. I need to find a phone. I need to call my family. I just wanted to go home.

            While in search of a phone, we began heading toward Battery Park. In the distance the Twin Towers were burning. I thought they had been bombed again. A firefighter was letting people use cell phones to reach their families. I called my mother, and learned that my daughter and younger sister were being sent home early from school. She was the one who finally told me that two planes flew into the towers. It was the most horrific thing I had ever heard. I hung up the phone wondering how someone could do something so horrible.

            Judy and I were only five blocks away from the World Trade Center when it collapsed that morning. It is so surreal to me. In my entire adult life I have never felt as lost and afraid as I did that day. To feel as if you’re not in control of your own life is a terrible feeling. Fear is a very powerful emotion. It can consume a person. When you have millions of people in one city, feeling that same sense of fear, it can create a chaotic and dangerous situation. As I walked through the city that day, I just remember people running for their lives. I learned a lot about myself that day. I became a stronger person. I saw people ban together when facing adversity. I am much more responsible and I don’t complain as much about the little things.

            Even now it feels like a dream; just like it did then. My life changed that fateful morning, but so did the lives of people across the nation. I think that most people can tell you what they were doing the morning of September 11. It was the day our lives would be changed forever. It was the day we as Americans knew we had something to fear. For me it was the day I thought my life would end, while the lives of thousands; many people that I knew were ending.