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It started as a perfect day.
I got up around six in the morning and jogged along the Wollaston Beach in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Off in the distance, I could see the Boston skyline. Both the John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Tower stood tall on the horizon against a sky of sapphire and ruby.
Overhead, passenger jets flew departing from Logan Airport.
After breakfast, I went to my study to write a short story as my workshop assignment.
I was deep in thought about the main characters' dramatic paths of love and loss in China and their new lives in America, the land of freedom and liberty, when I received a phone call from a close friend advising me to turn on the TV.
"Something big is happening!" he said.
I rushed downstairs and pressed the television remote control just as the image of the collapse of one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center flashed across the screen.
Peter Jennings was reporting that both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been hit by attacks from the air.
My first reaction was disbelief. It couldn't be true.
Then I saw a replay of the second plane crashing into the next tower creating a great burst of flames.
I immediately grabbed the phone and called my brother, who worked as an assistant vice president at an investment bank with offices on the fortieth floor of one of the towers.
The line was busy, so I dialed his home hoping that he had called his wife.
I got the same busy signal. I kept on redialing with my eyes glued to the television screen.
When I saw the second tower collapse in a huge mushroom of smoke and dust, I became overwhelmed with grief.
Crying, I pressed the redial button frantically as memories of my little brother rushed into my mind.
My wife took over the phone and promised to keep dialing and suggested that I e-mail my brother and ask him to call me.
I dashed back to my study and did as she suggested, then ran back to the living room and continued to watch the news on TV while my wife kept dialing.
I couldn't believe that the Twin Towers had been destroyed.
My wife and I had visited them on our first trip to New York many years ago, when we were new immigrants from China with bright dreams and a great hope for a new life in America.
She barely spoke English then. From the top of one Tower, we could see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the New York Stock Exchange.
Later, when I learned that a restaurant on the top of the Tower was one of the most romantic places to eat on earth, I promised myself to take my wife there on one of our major wedding anniversaries.
On my second visit to the Trade Center, I
met a friend at a Chinese trading company and realized that there were
many international companies there. I even dreamed of running an
import/export business there myself.
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On the TV screen, people were running and crying. I suddenly remembered that the wife of my college classmate had an office in one of the towers.
We had met her on our first visit to New York. She had just received a Master's degree from Syracuse University and was upbeat and ready to pursue her dream.
Aside from her regular teaching job, she sold clothes and shoes in a flea market near Hunter College on the weekends.
I remembered visiting her at the market and watching her trying to sell her wares to several clients at once.
We hadn't met for several years, because my classmate and his wife were very busy running their business.
When I had heard that their business was big enough for her to quit her job and rent an office in the World Trade Center, I told my wife that this was another wonderful American dream come true.
To deflect me from my anxiety, my wife urged me to go to Boston University and attend my class there.
When I reached the school, the classroom was almost half empty. The professor asked if any of us knew someone in the World Trade Center.
It turned out that only I, a Chinese-American, knew two people who worked there.
I wondered if he realized that the Center was an international office building.
I asked him to allow me to keep my cell phone on, since I was waiting for a call about my brother.
Halfway through the class, my wife called me to inform me of the safety of my
brother. I thanked her for the message and continued listening to the lecture as if nothing had happened.
When I returned home later in the afternoon, I made some phone calls to find out the fate of my classmate's wife.
There was no information. I felt drained and continued to watch television hoping for good news, but none came.
The local TV station reported that people had been evacuated from tall buildings in Boston for fear of another attack.
Late at night, my wife woke up and urged me to try to go to sleep. She wondered why I still worried since my brother was
safe -- he had been late for work and stranded on a train in New Jersey when the fatal attack occurred.
I told her that I was worried because so many people had been killed in just a few minutes.
I just couldn't understand how a few fanatics could threaten our freedom so easily, and I just couldn't imagine that new immigrants would never be able to look at the Statue of Liberty from the top of the towers.
Half asleep, my wife repeatedly asked me, "Why did they do it?" Unfortunately for a normal
person, I had no answer.
It just might have been a perfect day. |
