SEPTEMBER 11, THE THINGS I REMEMBER
By CM Lim
It's been 16 years since that fateful day in 2001, I do not wish to remind myself of the striking airliner and the buildings coming down and down every year. Somehow, few things still remain firmly etched in mind that evoked whenever Sep 11 is around the corner... |
| Image: Whimsical Day - CHO-ME.COM |
Little papers blew out
Sep 11 happened in the US on a bright morning, people on the street had just started off with their day, in Singapore on this side of the planet, I caught the news live in the night.
It was about 8 to 9 pm our time when I switched on my TV to our regular news channel CNA, which saw an aerial view from a helicopter leveled at the top floors of two skyscrapers.
On the upper level in one of them saw a torn through big hole which spanned many floors of offices, spots of huge fires and thick smokes billowed from a tattered wall opening, a number of little helicopters circled around that building, while huge amount of little papers streamed out like torrent from the hole spreading into the air like glitters, shimmered under the morning lights, flipped and glided down to the streets below, such an arresting sight was what I first thought...
So far yet so close
The buildings unmistakably were the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centerin lower Manhattan, I wonder what was the epic disaster movie this time around, with such stunning realism... but soon, reality set in, TV captions and narrations quickly led me to realized I am witnessing a fateful event, live telecast of the Twin Towers being attacked, unfolding more than 15000 kilometers away from home.
I called my friend, Dan, who lived a few floors above mine to find out more, he too could not be too sure what to make of it.
Up to that moment, it looked to me like a passenger jet probably screwed up big time hitting a skyscraper, but when the second strike occurred, it left with no doubt this whole thing is no accident.
All the anxiety
In a live telecast, real time, there was no telling of what's going to happen next seconds or minutes, everything was anyone's guess, how many people were in the buildings? how are people getting out? coupled with the horror attack on Pentagon, the mind quickly started to conjured up all sort of nonsense and what ifs.. even things like the prelude to WW3.The unknown bred lots and lots of fears and the anxieties of what were to follow. After the collapse of the first building, the sense of fear became so palpable, the newsreader at that moment was trying hard to hold her composure, I could see her lips quivering as she narrated from her source of all that was unfolding on the ground in Manhattan.
Time stood still
A sense of lost crept up in the aftermath of the second building collapse, there were siren wailing, TV narration, helicopters flying, but everything seems to had quieten down to almost silence, drowned out by a world stood still in apprehension for many many hours. There were lots of dust, while still there were lots of papers flipping down...I retired to bed having mix feelings, thoughts kept swirling on on what kind of tomorrow will tomorrow be.
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