Moment in History

I remember it like it was yesterday. We had just moved into our new house a week before, and we hadn’t even set up the TV in our living room yet. I drove to school and headed to my first period World History class. As I walked through the cafeteria it still smelled of the breakfast that some of the students would eat before class--every school cafeteria that I’ve been to has that same stale, pseudo-food smell. Immediately I noticed something different in the air: a sadness, a fret. Students were all around, either sitting in tables in hushed clusters or standing, staring. Staring up. What are they staring at? I looked up to find what seemed like a scene from a movie, but it was live. It was happening right now. On the television I watched in shock and horror as a huge jet barreled into the side of the World Trade Center tower. What had happened to the other tower? Is this a second plane? Two planes had struck the world trade center? Surely this is a mistake. Surely the scene will change and I will see Tom Cruise scaling the tower to save his fiancee before she crumbles to the ground with the rest of the tower. Surely this is a joke. A prank. How could this be happening? Who did this? Did someone do this on purpose or was it an accident? TWO accidents? The answers to my questions were becoming obvious, but I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that someone would do this horrific act on purpose. I continued on to my first period class in shock, knowing that this moment would forever be lodged in my memory and in the history of our nation. I proceeded to World History as we watched history unfold before our very eyes.