Fear Of A Islamic Planet!

9-11-2001

I'll never forget the moment it happend.

Sitting in the back corner of my senior year economics class goofing around with my buddy Nick. Our teacher, an unappologetic capitalist with a thinning comb over hair cut and a face that looked uncomfortably like a cheap Hitler Halloween mask (Thus, why he was referred to as Rubber Face. A nickname I still claim to have originated, although the origins have and will continue to be debated), was yammering on as usual about remote Florida locales along treacherous stretch's of highway where he planned to invest and sell for a profit to developers.

Without warning a class mate, her name escapes me, barges in through the doorway tardy by about fifteen minutes with claims that a plane has just struck the World Trade Center in New York City. Rubber Face immediatly rushed to his computer, no doubt to check on his stocks. A girl sitting next to myself and Nick, a ditzy blonde with the IQ of a used condom said, "was it intentional?".

We looked at one another in disbelief that any person this stupid could have survived on this planet for as long as she had. Ofcourse it wasn't intentional, who would fly a plane purposely into a giant building?

Amazingly, I managed to sit through one more class without even the slightest of mention of what was happening in New York City with exception to murmers in the hallways. So, I didn't think to much about it and why would I have? I was a naive seventeen (a week before my eighteenth birthday) year old slacker with bad skin and a part time job at a grocery store, my main concern was graduating with a C average so my dad wouldn't kick my ass. Life continued as normal, although I was conscious that a major news story was developing.

In those days I would leave school around 11:30 - Noon each day because of the OJT Program. As I walked home I could sense that something had changed, cars were driving slower, the few that were actually on the roads and the city itself seemed have lost it's pulse.

When I finally found myself infront of a television screen I vividly remember Tom Brokaw on NBC and the horrific visions of a mass murder being broadcasted in real time for the whole planet to witness. Words were flying across the bottom of the screen with quotes and facts as cameras showed helpless souls launching themselves from the windows of a flaming skyscraper. The streets of lower Manhattan covered in clouds of dust and people in tears fearing for the safety of their loved ones. It was a miserable sight to behold and yet I couldn't look away, it was the greatest car crash in the history of the world and instead of casually strolling by with a curious eye we all stopped dead in our tracks and stared.

My attention sooned turned to the radio where I recall hearing that retarded "Proud To Be An American" song and blowhards demanding immediate carpet bombing of every city in the middle east.

In a instant the world had changed forever.

It's kind of crazy, even now as I write this my eyes tend to water a bit. The real tragedy of 9/11 isn't the dismantling of The World Trade Center, it's the monsters we have all become in the years to follow. Bitter partisianship, exploitation and a willingness to sacrifice the lives of others for the comfort of our own safety without ever blinking an eye.