It was one of the first nice days of what passes for fall down here in Houstopolis. The air was dry and clear, the temperature was only in the eighties, and there was an actual northern breeze. It was, that rarest of things here in America's fourth largest city - a pretty day. Funny how that seems important for some reason.
I was at home. Checking my e-mails and puttering around in the quiet time between dropping the kiddo off at day care and going in to work. The phone rang - it was The Missus calling from her office saying that someone had crashed a plane into one of the towers. Being a history geek, I immediately thought of the B25 that hit the Empire State Building in the forties and flipped the TV over to Good Morning America. Initially, it was hard to tell the extent of things because of the camera shot. Was it a private plane? How stupid do you have to be to hit something that big. Couldn't tell.
Then the camera pulled back just in time to track the second plane in.
After a milisecond of wondering if the air traffic controll system for New York was completely down, I realized what I'd just seen. Oddly enough, the next image in my head was straight out of the premiere of "The Lone Gunmen".
When I got my jaw off the floor, I called The Missus and told her it was obviously no accident, it was two ******' airliners, and it looked bad. And then I left for work.
By the time I stopped for gas, the Pentagon had been hit. I tried to call the Missus with an update, but cell traffic was shot, even in Houston.
Just before I got to work, the announcer on NPR said, "One of the towers has fallen." I nearly crashed the car. The notion of such a scope of disaster was beyond my ability to process at that moment. I wish it still were.
I work at a medical clinic, so the waiting room TV was on. Most of the staff were in on time, but no one was working. We were all just watching the rest of it unfold. Another plane down in Pennsylvanian. The Pentagon on fire. Along with the rumors. All planes grounded. Twelve planes still unaccounted for. Local businesses shutting down for the day left and right. We stayed open because our patients needed us, and HIV doesn't care about what happens half a continent away.
I spent the day in a numb haze. I distinctly remember eating lunch at a Vietnamese place I never go to because it's always too busy at lunch time. Not that day.
I finally went home around 3:30. I just couldn't focus on anything. I hugged the kid for what seemed like forever (and probably confused him to no end, since he was only a year and a half old at the time), went upstairs and cried for about an hour, while my wife took the kid over to her folks. I called my Dad, who's the only person I know who remembers Pearl Harbor, just to see if what I was feeling was anything like 1941.
When The Missus got home, she told me her dad's best friend, a crack USAF pilot and former astronaut (really), had been ordered that morning to fly to an airbase in El Paso and assume command of a fighter squadron and await further orders. He's never said anything about it, but we all assume he was part of the fighter escort that took Air Force One to Nebraska and then back to Washington.
At any rate, for about a month, gaming was the last thing on my mind. You see, at the time the first plane going in, I was writing a big, loud, city-shattering superhero setting along the lines of The Authority. The only game I was playing in was a monthly Champions campaign. Suddenly, the thought of knocking down a skyscraper lost all its appeal.
Almost a year on, I still can't look at tall buildings (and Houston has its share) without envisioning planes hitting them. I still remember the eerily silent sky for those days when all flights were grounded, and remember seeing a pair of F16s circling Johnson Space Center, all alone.
Well, that rambled on a bit, didn't it? At any rate, I'm planning on taking the day off from work. I'm not sure why, but I know I won't feel like going in.