Five years later, coming to terms with nearly being engulfed by the WTC collapse.

::::::::

I woke up on the morning of September 11th before dawn, sweat drenched and badly shaken by a vivid nightmare about dying in a plane crash. In the dream I was at the end of an overseas night flight and was watching the light of land approaching with my nose pressed up against the glass portal of the window over one wing. The smooth hum of the jet's engines outside the fuselage was interrupted as the turbines began to sputter and choke. I saw the ocean's black waters rush towards me, whitecaps illuminated by the full moon's light, the ocean's churning surface glinting with reflections. My stomach hovered at the base of my throat while we plunged, and then the engines roared back into to life, the plane momentarily stabilizing and the force of forward propulsion slamming me backwards in my seat.

Land was not far off and I sensed that the pilot was struggling to keep us airborne long enough to make an emergency landing somewhere off in the woods that lined the coast. But the engines died again and the nose dipped, sending the plane into a precipitous tailspin that was accompanied by the�sound of a Second World War kamikaze pilot homing in on his target. The plane barely reached shore and the sand rose fast to meet me as I watched from the window paralyzed by terror and then everything went black.

I wrenched my head from the pillow and into consciousness with a painful rending that sounded loudly in my ear like sheet metal being shorn with a jigsaw. It was as if I was pulling myself from tar pits of the underworld, emerging heavily, draped with oozing death.

It was four in the morning and I was afraid to go back to sleep. I stared at the ceiling for an hour. Birds began to chirp. Light crept around the sides of my building, casting weak shadows outside my window. I slowly rose to dress, deciding to leave for work early enough to walk to Wall Street from the East Village. It looked like it would be a beautiful day. I knew the quiet of Chinatown at dawn with its concrete parks peopled with elderly Asian men and women doing silent tai chi in the dissipating morning mist would calm my nerves.

By the time I passed in front of City Hall the rising sun had evaporated any still-clinging tendrils of last night's sleep. I was awake and alert and thinking of work. The sidewalks were tightly packed with commuters that streamed out of subway stations and buses and taxis. The behemoth was coming alive, a swarm of purpose and determination, swinging briefcases and held aloft cell phones, vigorous handshakes and palms cupped to shield the lighting of cigarettes, folded newspapers thrust under arms and last minute make up applications.

There was the distant sound of an approaching airplane that was soon not so distant. A curious moment hung as I debated with myself over whether or not I had ever heard a plane passing over Manhattan while I stopped to wait at a red light. Can planes pass over Manhattan? Isn't there some kind of law against that? It must be flying very low; the engine was so...

Loud.

The sound was close, screaming into my ear, a giant angry insect over my right shoulder, flying past me fast. It was plainly the sound of a large airplane in freefall. It was the sound of a kamikaze dive-bomber, the same sound which hours before directly preceded my own dreaming death. I felt transported. I wasn't sure if I was awake, or if I ever woke up, thinking perhaps this is but another dream inside a dream. That thought was less inconceivable than the alternative posed by reality. I momentarily thought, "Yes, a dream, what an unbelievably vivid dream."

I saw the world wheeling in slow motion as I turned, panning the sky, searching the bright blue overhead in a surge of panic for corresponding motion to the deafening sound whose pitch rose to that of a desperate siren the moment before...

Impact.

I was flung by the meaty, percussive shockwave arcing out from somewhere southwest of where I stood.� It blew me off my feet, the sound; a fearsome thunderclap whose passing found me with my knees to the sidewalk's concrete, my hands instinctively locked over my head. I remained fetal, tightly clenched for a moment before timidly rising with my hands still hanging in the air, shielding my face in an impotent, protective gesture.

The sky rained thin strips of paper like an impromptu�ticker tape parade, long streamers falling to earth like a meteor shower in miniature. The paper�was everywhere, some falling in little squares like bales of confetti thrown from high above, some whole pages see-sawing across the sky while smoldering, still flaming, fluttering across downtown like a flock of burning white birds. Powdery gray dust floated in the air, drifting gently downward like snowflakes, lending the scene a deathly and misleading sense of calm.

As I looked eastward and caught sight of the towers for the first time a woman who stood before me and had already seen them began to wail and moan. She was a heavy black woman whose girth was cinched above her ample hips by the fabric of her dress that tied belt-like in a big bow at the front. The dress's bold, floral design against the broad swath of black cloth that stretched across her back amplified her size, as did her wide brimmed hat, like a Sunday morning church crown, as she tilted her head back and cried, "Oh my God, my God!" her hands held aloft, fingers splayed and trembling, calling out in dismay to the heavens.

When I saw the tower's gaping wound, pouring fire and smoke into the sky like a roaring orange and black river, the first thought that came into my mind was, "That building's coming down." It was clear that there was no other possibility; it had sustained a certainly fatal blow. And then I was running, as others gathered in the intersection, flocking to behold the moment, looking up and shielding their eyes. I cut through the crowds who were oblivious to what I imagined was their imminent peril, yelling over and over, "That building's coming down! That building's coming down!" with my hands still absurdly flung over my head, as if I could keep a collapsing building from crushing me under its weight, as if I could prevent the very sky from falling.

* * *

I swung left and turned down John Street, an old cross-town thoroughfare narrow enough to spit across. I wanted to get far away from Towers as fast as possible and craned my neck ninety degrees while I ran so I could keep an eye on the receding roaring fire. Once I reached the end of the block my view of the Towers was obscured but I could still see the fat smoke plume that was accumulating in the airspace over them like an evil genie loosed from his bottle. My run slowed to a trot; hardly the athletic type, I was breathless already after only a couple blocks. As I turned right on Nassau, heading south towards the Stock Exchange, I grabbed my chest and stopped for a moment, bending over, hands on my knees, to suck wind. I looked at the men and women who passed me by, searching their faces for fear, for acknowledgment of the peril we were all thrust into moments ago, scanning one face after the next hoping to find someone who could explain to me what just happened.

But Nassau Street was calm, foot traffic not breaking stride from the brisk walk anyone who wanted to be at their desk by 9:00am needed keep. Cell phones flicked open and shut as last minute personal conversations commenced and concluded in front of steadily spinning revolving doors. Vendor carts retained their impatient lines of watch-glancing white-collars. Bustling suits skimmed the back page of the Post on their way past and from the looks on their faces it seemed like anyone running only did so out desperation to make a business meeting on time. One block off Broadway was business as usual, the tooth rattling explosion across town written off as a manhole cover blown skyward by an ignited underground gas pocket, perhaps a snapped cable on a construction site causing a crane to drop its payload. It was a city of loud noises and the regulars were unruffled.

My fear only partly subsided and I recommenced with my hustling half run still heading south on Nassau onto Broad and past the New York Stock Exchange. When I hit the front steps of my building a half block south of that I broke back into a run, side stepping crowds of calmly circled smoking stock traders talking about the market. Once inside I swiped my security card, opening the ground floor door next to the elevator banks and bounded up two flights of stairs. I burst into the office, pointing backwards at the door I flung myself through and again said, "That building's coming down! That building's coming down!"

My coworkers looked at me like I was nuts. They told me the TV said it was a Cessna. They told me to calm down.

When I got to my desk I snatched the phone out of its cradle while still standing and dialed my parent's number back home in Philadelphia. They were already at work. The answering machine beeped and I talked into the ensuing silence while watching live video footage being shot from a police helicopter that hovered around the blazing hole. I told them they were going to see some crazy things on the TV this morning. I told them that I was safe and inside and for them not to worry.

I put the phone back down. I sat down at my desk and tried to log my computer onto the network so I could send emails to friends saying the same thing I just said to my parents. My hands were shaking so badly I kept hitting the wrong keys and after the third slow and deliberate attempt to type my logon name and password I shut the monitor off and pushed my chair back from the desk. I decided to go home. I was shaken too badly to work.

I retraced my path back down the stairwell and back out the building's big bronze front doors. I stood on the second of two stone steps leading down to Broad Street's sidewalk and slipped a pack of cigarettes from my shirt pocket. One smoke, I thought. Let me have one smoke and try to collect myself before deciding to leave. Maybe I really am overreacting. Still-trembling fingers slipped the cigarette's slim cylinder tip between my lips and I fished a lighter from my front pocket. I raised the lighter, steadying one hand with the other and as the flickering flame touched the tip's white paper...

Again.

The same sound as before, every bit as loud, every bit as thick and tangible and terrifying. It jolted me and I literally jumped; a ridiculous looking vertical leap like I was tagged on the ass with a cattle prod. The cigarette flew out of my mouth and the lighter rattled on the ground as my hands went instinctively back to my head, shielding my ears from the blast that echoed down the steep concrete corridors of downtown's tightly packed streets.

"Bomb!"

"It's a bomb!"

"A bomb went off at the Stock Exchange!"

The dense, milling morning crowds that lined the sidewalks and loitered in front of the office buildings that lined Broad Street dispersed in a random and panicked scatter-shot fashion. Men dropped their briefcases and women left one empty high heel where they had been standing as they sprinted towards the nearest doorway, cramming into whatever building was closest. I turned and ran back into my building, flinging the door open wide behind me for the others who were approaching fast, running south, trying to get away from the Stock Exchange.

* * *

Once back upstairs I immediately noticed the change in the prevailing disposition of my coworkers. As I entered the office this time people were scrambling to grab any unused phone and with a finger stuffed in one ear to block the noise of growing panic talked loudly into the receiver, leaving messages for friends and loved ones who worked in or around the towers and for family members around the country who were by now surely watching on TV. Phone lines and cell signals started to fail, the downtown networks overloaded or damaged. We watched with pained expressions the images looming on the two large TVs management rolled down the room's center aisle on tall metal stands so that we could all monitor the situation from one central location.

I breathlessly announced to the room that a bomb went off at the Stock Exchange but after I did heads turned towards me, moving side to side saying, "No," their corresponding fingers pointed towards the TV screens. The North tower was burning now, too. I paced frantically, wondering what to do. We were under attack. Management argued over a course of action. Should we stay put? Should we evacuate? Should we move into the basement? By the time someone shouted out that they hit the Pentagon I was already headed for the doors.

I burst onto Broad Street running at full tilt, dodging other skittish runners like we were dashing running backs just handed the football, stutter stepping around each other in an attempt to beat a tackle. At the corner of Exchange Place I warily eyed the columned fa�ade of the New York Stock Exchange like it was a hungry animal ready to pounce. I was fully convinced it was set to detonate at any moment, anticipating that bomb-blown chunks of its heavy stone would come chasing me like cannon balls. I couldn't get up the nerve to run past it, so I turned right onto Exchange Place and wound my way up Williams Street, another near back alley in the tight grid of downtown's old world layout.

It was a slightly uphill run. I was hauling hard for air with each breath by the time I made it to Fulton Street, where I made a left and started across town towards Broadway, back towards the Towers.

I wanted to see them one more time. I wanted to stand in awe and horror, drinking in fully the sights and sounds of the day I knew that my grandchildren would hear the details of from my aged lips. I knew that I would tell and retell the story of what was happening as I stood there countless times in the decades between then and now. I knew that I was witnessing History with a capital "H." I felt responsible for looking. I resisted the urge to keep running north and not look back. As I arrived at the four-lane crossing of the one of the biggest intersections below Canal Street I found hundreds of other people who stopped to do the same.

I stepped into the crowd like I was joining in an audience gathered to behold the Second Coming. All heads were tilted backwards, all mouths hung open, and all eyes were transfixed. Some shielded their faces from the sun now looming over the tall buildings to the east that cast long shadows on the concrete in front of us like the tree trunks in a thick forest. It was silent. In the silence, we watched. The sky was so clear that it was possible to see the ghastly teeth of the torn and jagged metal ringing each rupture. I saw individual licks of flame that stretched serpentine into the air above them. I thought for a moment about the people above the holes. I couldn't think about them for very long. I wasn't much for prayer but I said one anyhow. I wanted to grab the world with my hands and spin it backwards on its axis like a plastic grade school globe to make the fiery holes disappear.

A wave of anger washed over me and I changed my mind. I didn't want to grab the world like a globe and spin it backwards, I wanted to wad it up in my palms like a piece of trash and hurl it across the universe, out into the unreachable depths of deep space. Because things like this happened. Because we do things like this to ourselves, human beings. I was looking right at it; the very worst of human potential, a mass murder of monumental proportions.

As I watched I became scared, and in a different way than I had been all morning. It was a deeper fear than for my own physical well being. It was a seismic metaphysical rumbling in my viscera, a total crumbling of sense and reason; the unveiling of the Heart of Darkness, after whose revelation surely nothing would ever be the same. I didn't know what life was going to be like after this; I assumed that it would be radically different and inescapably worse. It felt like everything was over. New York was dying before my eyes. The world as I knew it was dying before my eyes. The more I thought about it the more abstract the scene became. Tall buildings. Big holes. Smoke and fire. Everything was fine two hours ago and now nothing was fine and might not ever be. And I was sitting at the center of it, watching it in a tight and silent circle of people I didn't know and had never seen before and likely wouldn't ever again, but to whom I was now inextricably bound for all time by my watching in tandem to theirs.

And then the south tower fell.

My hands went to my forehead, landing heavily and then pushing against my skull, pushing backwards on my scalp, forcing my watching eyes open wider, the skin pulling taut as the cascade of ruin gained momentum, raining downward on downtown with a waterfall's torrential roar. It wasn't a sound so much as an atmosphere; loud enough to choke out all other sounds besides my own screaming, "No!" that echoed in my head. No. No. It was the word on all the donut shaped lips and hollering mouths around me, all futilely screaming against destruction's rumble that drowned out everything and blasted past our ears like an invisible freight train.

The building evaporated into a roiling cloud, like a densely piled thunderhead gaining strength and momentum only four blocks away. It was a dank gray and black ball of demolition propelled outward and upward by the force of its own falling, thousands of tons of concrete and steel and glass all collapsing and bursting forth from the confines of its structure. For a moment it was simply awesome to behold, I was so close as to be able to see the mass angrily folding in upon itself and surging back outwards. I could see the rounded edges of isolated clouds in the larger mass that looked soft, but fearfully dark, as if it was comprised of the taint of death itself, the Creeping Death of the Old Testament come crawling across Manhattan looking for first born children.

And then death came barreling down Fulton Street, moving fast, getting close to and then nearly on top of the mesmerized crowd in an eye blink's span, tumbling over itself like the leading edge of a tsunami flood surge. Still screaming heads turned to run, arms thrust out in front of them, fingertips reaching into the open-air ahead of them as if grasping for an unseen rope that would pull them from danger's path. The slow to move, the elderly and less able, were knocked over and left to writhe on their backs before the crashing wave. I hesitated momentarily as an old woman behind me hunched over, holding her arms out to brace herself against the crowd, more afraid of the scrambling pack than what pursued it. But I ran. Every man for himself. I was irrationally convinced that if one particle of that sinister cloud managed to touch me I would die. The thought of being engulfed by it urged me forward, running blind from the fear of choking to death on the ashes of the dead.

Jeff Deeney is a Philadelphia-based writer who was living and working in lower Manhattan on September
11th, 2001. He is currently seeking a publisher for
his book about the black market trade in the
pharmaceutical, OxyContin, titled, "Pill Hill." He can be reached at [email protected].

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Submitter: Russ Wellen

Submitters Bio:

Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.

"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth."
-- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency