Surreal

Ten years ago on this day, I was half asleep, dreading going to class when my father told me 'they've bombed the World Trade Center and the PENTAGON'

His words didn't make any sense.

Who would attack us? We are the all powerful United States and a mere look from us will render lesser countries powerless.

I think my generation was always under the mistaken impression no one would dare attack us. Sure, stuff happens elsewhere in the world, but not here on home soil. Not with oceans to the east and west. We have no quarrel with Canada or Mexico. And anyway, if an army came sailing up to our coast, we have a Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, AND the Army and the Air Force.

Perfectly safe.

But we're not. We have defense against armies, we have no defense against a handful of madmen.

And still don't, ten years later.

My father watched television nearly 24 hours straight. I was unable to escape the sight of planes crashing into the towers. Finally, I told him to turn the tv off and go to bed. He got really angry with me. History is occurring right before our eyes. We are entering a new era. My father was born in 1932. He remembers his uncles coming home from World War II changed by the torture they endured, the lives they took. His grandfather fought in World War I. My father fought in Korea. He watched the Vietnam War with interest, compared it to the combat he knew and the stories he'd heard from other men. There is a bit of solider in every man and my father the solider wanted to know his enemy. He had already loaded his guns and checked all the windows in the house.

It was not that I didn't care. It was that I was suffering from sensory overload. Evidently my mother was too, because she sided with me and the television was glaringly silent.

What I remember most about that time was duct tape. People rushed down the the local hardware store to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting. Everyone was sealing up their houses against bio-chemical warfare. Which was stupid. If you sealed up your house so no airborne pathogens or chemicals could get in, then you couldn't get out. What were people going to do, just sit at home and wait to die? How long are you going to sit there? A day? A week? A month? How much food and water do you have? Did you remember extra water for bathing? Do you have animals? Are they out or in? It was madness and I couldn't take it. I boldly went on with my life, still taking daily walks and leaving the windows open at night to catch a breeze.

I begin to have nightmares. In all of them, I hear the drone of a plane. I scream at my parents to go in the house. For some reason my dog is way off at the back of the property. I cannot bear the thought of leaving such a loyal creature to die. I run across the fields to get him. The plane is circling. I pick the dog up. He is very heavy and I am running back to the house in slow motion. The plane drops a bomb which is also moving slowly, tumbling lazily through the air. I know the bomb contains poison chemicals. The bomb hits the ground before I reach the house. Still holding the dog, I dive under the car. I hear the hiss of gas...

I would wake up drenched in sweat. I would force myself to lay back down. I had the overwhelming urge to run, hide, take my family to safety. I would lay in the dark and wonder if I had been screaming. I hope I didn't wake anybody. I would tell myself it was unlikely terrorists would attack Alabama, but then, I used to think no one would attack Americans in their own country. Suddenly I saw the duct tape for what it was- an attempt to keep the public from panicking. Listen to the soothing voice of the government official telling you how to be safe. Don't worry about a thing. Yeah, it was stupid, but what else could they tell us?

I don't have nightmares anymore, but I might if I turn on the television today. So I'm not watching the news and I'm not flying a flag or hanging up ribbons. I can think of a thousand faceless people dying for no reason and I can get angry about it. But if I hear their names my heart begins to break. I can understand soldiers meeting face to face on the battlefield, but I cannot understand killing people while they live their lives just because they are American. I cannot understand, and I see no honor in, an unprovoked attack on civilians.

September 11th is the day I can't forget, the time we slipped into a parallel universe of horror. It's a time when nothing was ever right with the world again. I can't process it, can't deal with it, can't think on it too much or fear overtakes me. And for me, peace of mind is being able to sleep with the windows wide open.