A day at the Office

9/11 - A DAY AT THE OFFICE

I don't sleep any more. Well, not the normal close your eyes and drift
off sleep anyway. I just dose myself up with tablets that'll knock me
out. I just can't. Every time I close my eyes I see a thousand
different versions of hell, except this wasn't anything envisaged by
Dante or Faust. This was all too horribly real.
9/11 is a date that nobody anywhere will ever forget. The images of
hijacked planes and their targets will be etched on minds forevermore.
But some of us didn't see the planes nor their immediate impact. For
people like myself it was another day at the office. My office - World
Trade Center.
I even remember thinking what a beautiful day it was going to be as I
appreciated what little blue sky could be seen between the high-rises.
I never used the tube as it was only a short walk away from my
apartment, and I considered it to be good exercise. I picked up a paper
from a stall on the way and saw the usual financial warnings of low
growth and pick up, drops in share prices, hi-tech firms going
under.
Things like that just don't seem to matter so much anymore.
I always arrived ten minutes early. It gave me time to get a second
coffee fix after the initial one at home had worn off. There would
always be a small group around the vend machine talking about the sport
and what they had done the evening before. I remember taking the
opportunity of flirting with the new office clerk. She was in early
just to make a good impression and after a week was making a pretty
reasonable one on me. So I wasted a few minutes chatting her up, asking
her out and feeling a small thrill when she agreed and she was free
that very evening.
You hold on to little things like that. Small, insignificant things in
the shake-up that keep you from falling apart when the world crashes in
on you. I try to hold that image of that day, keep it from slipping out
of my mind and replaced with constant re-runs of the next few
hours.
It was our tower the first plane hit. As pretty much everybody is aware
there were no warnings, no uneasy vibes to pick up on. We were on the
blind side of the strike so we were unaware of precisely what had
happened but we all felt the explosion rock the building. The situation
could have been regarded by the outside world as a bit surreal if they
had viewed our office. We were quite a way below the incident so
initially, although we wanted to know what the hell had happened we
kept quite calm. The building is just so
huge&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;was so huge, that whatever happens
elsewhere you feel it's quite isolated. Some peered out of windows,
necks craned to look up, but from our location it was difficult to see
what had happened. Others were on computers and phones trying to
continue with their day. But it was only some twenty, maybe thirty
seconds before a calls came in. Colleagues and friends from nearer the
attack were phoning us all. Desk phones and cell-phones were all going
off. Then alarms started ringing. Voices were flying across desks with
different versions of the same incident. Gas explosions, bombs,
missiles and a plane. No-one believed a plane ! How could they ? How
could they believe that we were even being attacked ? We weren't a
military target for anyone. 'Jesus Christ ! World War Three must just
have started.' I heard someone say. People began forming their own
clique groups, whispering amongst themselves, talking about
conspiracies and reactions.
Debris started flying past the window, falling down to the streets
below. It seemed it was only when this scene of physical destruction
started that people were heading for the exit.
The whole scene was of suppressed panic. I could feel my heart thumping
hard and fast, I couldn't swallow and I began to shake. I still shake
now. A scream ripped through the office as liquid broke through the
ceiling. It wasn't just water, there was petrol or oil or some such
stuff in it. The ceiling just caved in on us. We forced our way onto
the stairs and into fire exits and that's when the magnitude of the
whole thing hit us. The full horror of the situation confronted each
and every one of us as we surged through. There were people everywhere.
Screaming, crying, shouting in panic. The stairwells were full of acrid
smoke and fumes. Thirty-odd years of dust filled our lungs as we tried
to breath under shirts and jackets. I saw some people trying to charge
through., falling over, bundling people with them to the bottom of
stairways. God knows the appalling injuries some of them suffered, but
the screams were chilling. We tried to pick some up, but the crush of
people behind us pushed us on. More than one time my fingers slipped
from a pleading hand. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that
emergency services would get to them. I don't know if they did, I
really don't.
I think it was only then that I started thinking about how bad it was
above. I hadn't entertained the thought that anyone could have died, I
can't explain why it was then that I even thought about it. I felt
nauseous as the full realisation set in. There were friends I would
probably never ever see again. I started crying uncontrollably. I
couldn't see through the smoke, couldn't see where one set of stairs
ended and another started. The emergency lighting was almost completely
ineffective. It felt like a cattle stampede.
As we pushed through the doors at the bottom, smoke and dust billowed
around us. All kinds of things were falling from the sky and we
sheltered as much as was possible from anything coming down. Moving and
dodging, occasionally getting hit with card or paper. Then we saw
bodies on the ground. Burned and charred beyond recognition, or just a
mess as they chose falling to their death over fire. I cry when I think
of having to make that decision. There were so many bodies. We just
kept running, not daring to look back, and just avoiding the next
terrifying obstacle.
People say the world changed that day. It didn't change half as much as
the lives of those in the towers, the planes and the Pentagon. The
families. Since then it's been called a major event by some media. To
me it was just a personal tragedy. Superbowl is a major event. These
thoughts keep me sane. Everyone always complains about another day at
the office. I wish to God that 9/11 was just another day at the
office.