Tag: writing

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And now for something completely different

If you glanced at the stream video post I made, you might have noticed that I mentioned a new project. This one can be filed under “brain why are you like this?” in some ways, though in others I definitely did it to myself.

The past couple weeks, I’ve been thumbing through old work–like, really, really old work, some of it dating back to high school. High school was a really, really long time ago at this point. All of it is objectively terrible and sometimes it’s nice to realize how much progression there’s been over the years, but conceptually some of them are really interesting. Lately I’ve been reflecting on how some ideas from those days that I started and discarded as beyond belief seem a lot less so now. That’s a little bit of a digression, but it does in part lead into what comes next.

I started writing something this past Tuesday, just to flex some muscles and see what happened. This is a lightly tweaked/edited of that first page and a half or so. I don’t fully have my arms around what this is going t o be, but after polling some roleplay buddies, I think I have an interesting direction to go in. We’ll see what happens. It could be something or it could be nothing. Either way, enjoy this little untitled slice of something inspired by old work that could become something very interesting (and probably pretty dark if I’m being honest).

I remember the rain and a strange sound before it happened, but for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you what it was.  It was just a sound and a strange light I caught from the corner of my eye.

Then entire world around me shuddered when that plane hit the ground.

I remember what came next mostly in fragments.  Flashes.  Broken pieces.

A lot of broken pieces.

The sound of my keys hitting the ground next to my foot.  I don’t even remember if I’d locked the door or not.  I just remember turning and seeing the fading and then growing glow and the smoke.

I didn’t think.  I just ran.

Ran toward that glow and smoke like some instinct in me was screaming that I should.

The field where the plane had gone down was two blocks from the old house.  I sprinted the entire way like the hounds of hell were after me.

The closer I got, the stronger the smell got—fuel, smoke, the smell of burning things set my common sense howling not to get closer, that this was dangerous, that this was deadly, that no one could have survived anything that smelled like this.

But something in me wouldn’t let me stop moving toward danger instead of away from it.

The plane’s wing had taken out part of the fence around the field, curling it like the lid of a can.  I could still make out the lettering along the metal, pitted and ragged at one end where the wing had been wrenched from the plane’s fuselage.

Eden.  It was an Eden Technology Group plane.  A test plane.

It wouldn’t occur to me until later that it didn’t make sense that a test pilot would’ve been flying in the rain.

I remember the heat of the fire as I threw myself toward what was left of the plane, as if I was going to be able to do anything for whatever pilot had been flying the thing.  It was barely recognizable for what it was and for weeks after—months, even—no one could quite believe that anyone had survived it.

I couldn’t even believe sometimes that anyone had survived it, and I was there.

The cockpit had separated from the main fuselage and it was laying on its side, the canopy torn away, or perhaps jettisoned at the last second before impact—it was hard to tell at a glance and I don’t remember the details.  I just remember the taste of smoke and the sting in my eyes and at the back of my throat as I got close enough to see that was still someone in there, still strapped into the pilot’s seat.

Just one.

I remember the red helmet with the blue streak and the scrapes across it from I don’t even know what.  I remember the shattered visor and a bloody face.

I remember one breath, two—and thinking that those breaths had stopped by the time I got to the cockpit, my hands scrabbling against a tattered flightsuit and buckles that burned my fingers as I tried to free the pilot.  The fire was spreading, was getting close.  I remember him taking one big gulp of air as I yanked the restraints free, but not any breaths in between.

I don’t even know if he was conscious as I hauled him out of the cockpit with strength I shouldn’t have had.  Maybe he helped me.  I don’t know.

We were three steps away when the fuel tanks exploded and sent us flying.

For a few minutes, everything went black.

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Twenty-One Septembers Later

The anniversary is old enough to drink.

That was the absurd realization I had on Friday, thinking about this weekend, remembering again that the weekend was the anniversary of the day.

The anniversary is old enough to drink.

An entire generation of adults have been born since that September Tuesday that should have been as normal as any other. It was bright and beautiful with just a hint of crispness that you sometimes get in early September. I was a college sophomore at Grand Valley State, two months out from my nineteenth birthday. I’d taken a bike ride in the hopes it would help my developing head cold and returned after my roommate was gone for class.

Someone in an IRC chat told me to turn on the television because a plane at hit the towers. I thought he was joking, but after he said it again, I turned on the Today show, thinking that it couldn’t be anything major. I remember watching the anchors be as confused as I was.

I called friends, told them to turn on the TV.

I was one the phone with one when the second plane hit and all of a sudden, you knew.

This anniversary is old enough to drink.

There are more than a few children that have been born to parents who weren’t even born to a world where the towers stood at the edge of Manhattan. I don’t know that it will never not be surreal to think about that.

The university didn’t cancel classes. Individual professors did. Perhaps by the evening classes, the university had shut them down, but I don’t remember that. I only know that all of my classes would have happened if not for professors cancelling them.

The Classics department found out what was happening from me. My Latin professor found out from me. My anthropology professor cancelled class because he and his wife—another professor, my advisor at the time—were trying to figure out where her sister was.

She worked at the Trade Center.

She was okay.

Back then, my dad traveled extensively for work. California was not an unusual destination.

I didn’t know where my dad was.

This was a time before most of us had cell phones. I called my mom long-distance with a phone card.

Where’s Dad?

Safe. He wasn’t on those flights.

Dad was already in California. He ended up staying longer than anticipated because he couldn’t get a flight out. We all forget about that, I think, how long air traffic was shut down.

Shut down for good reason.

My cousin was in the Air Force at the time. I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t have her parents’ number.

I called my grandparents to get it. I had three younger siblings. I didn’t want to tie up my mom’s phone line, just in case.

My cousin was okay—and told us a story a long while later about something that happened later that day, at the SAC base in Omaha where she’d been stationed.

My brother was a senior in high school. My sister was in elementary school. I struggle to remember what grade my baby brother was in, but he must have been in elementary school, too, because he would graduate high school eleven years later. For some reason, thinking about it, the story my mom tells about the day centers on my sister.

They stayed at school.

My mom could have pulled them out—she’d been at the elementary school when it all happened and later when word came down and the district was deciding to lock down. The office staff told her that if she didn’t want to get stuck there, she needed to go, but she could pull my siblings if she wanted.

She said no, let them stay, let them be with their friends.

We were all with our friends.

This anniversary is old enough to drink.

Most of my generation wasn’t when the world was reshaped. A bare handful of American millennials were able to drink when 9/11 happened, when the towers fell, when the Pentagon was hit, when a plane was forced down over a Pennsylvania field.

It was not the world that was expected. It was the world we got. We were supposed to have peace and prosperity and flying cars and, to quote Fukuyama, an “end of history.” (Not that I’ve ever bought his thesis there)

Instead, twenty years of war and a generation lost. Innocence lost. Nothing is as we expected. Nothing is as was hoped for by our parents, or their parents, for their children and grandchildren.

We remember and mourn not only those who were lost and what was lost, but what might have been. There has been good. There has been bad.

There’s been a lot.

Twenty-one Septembers later, this anniversary is old enough to drink.

It is not an anniversary we ever wanted, but it’s the one we get.

Twenty-one Septembers later, this anniversary is old enough to drink.