oh man. I was fourteen going on fifteen, a freshman in high school. Algebra class. The teacher was on the phone when I got to class, everyone that was already there was staring at the Tv that the morning announcements usually came on.
I thought it was a movie at first; I didn't understand. There was no class during that hour. We were all turned away from the chalkboard and staring at the TV. The whole school was silent. You could hear the TVs in the other rooms, all echoing what was coming from our TV.
I remember the door was open to the hall and some teachers were talking in the hallway in really quiet voices, like they were trying to keep a secret. I was trying to listen to what they were saying, but I couldn't really focus on them; it was the all on the TV. Surreal. Everything was rumors. A plane at the Pentagon, but there's no way that was true. Just a rumor. It's people panicking. No way there was a second plane crash, and at a government building? no way.
And then we watched the second plane fly into the tower. Like an ugly orange flower with glitter. The teacher gave a quick scream, like a yelp, then started crying and called her husband. I remember thinking how it wasn't like the explosions you see in movies. It was real. the screams on the tv were real.
That's when everybody knew, after that second plane. There was like this collective swell of controlled panic, and uneasiness, in the class. we were looking around at each other and you could just feel it. I looked in the eyes of some others in the class who i never really even spoke to, and there was this short moment were we looked at each other and silently looked for something. I don't know what it was, fear maybe. But you could just feel that something big had happened and there was a change, like the whole world just moved.
More voices around school after the second plane, it wasn't silent anymore. Then the principle came on the overhead awhile later to explain that classes wouldn't be changing for next hour.
I remember during lunch, in the cafeteria, one of my buddies joked about how there were rumors it was arabic terrorists who did it, and arabic terrorists had beards, and Al Gore was growing a beard, so it was Al Gore who attacked us. I laughed.
God I remember that so clearly. It's crazy.
