The Day the Towers Died

Mother’s mouth was a grim line as she ran along the quaking street. I did my best to keep up. All around us, people were screaming and running in the same direction as us. Away from the burning, smoking towers. The South one was nearly two-thirds of the way collapsed and the North one was still standing. But both were blazing with orange explosions and red flames that licked the remnants of the walls.

The South Tower finished collapsing with a huge boom that shook the streets. I heard a child’s wailing as his mother tripped. I saw her struggle to her feet before she was trampled. My own mother didn’t slow her pace.

Then the North Tower began to cave in on itself. There was another heart-stopping boom as the roof fell in. I stumbled as the street below me buckled, but regained my balance quickly and ran on.

I risked a glance behind me. The North Tower was halfway through its collapse. Was that a body being flattened in the stampede? I gritted my teeth and kept sprinting. I wanted to close my eyes, to block out the chaos, but I knew that I couldn’t do that. I had to wait ‘til the dust settled, ‘til I was safe. Safe with Mother. Safe with hope.

Suddenly, with an explosion that seemed to rip open the world, the North Tower was no more.

Gradually, the Earth stopped shaking, and an eerie silence descended over the place that would come to be known as Ground Zero.

As the last of the dust found its place on our heads and shoulders and among the rubble, my mother wrapped her arms around me, and she and I cried. We cried until our eyes held no more tears. For now, my father lay amongst the ruined towers, never to move or play us music on his harmonica ever again.

My father was a brave firefighter. A hero, as the some 40 people he saved would later refer to him.

Now, my mother and I are alone.

But at least I am sure of one thing now. We are alone, together.

I turned seventeen yesterday, and Mother has remarried. But I’ll never forget my father. My hero.

Samantha Ostman