September 11, 2001 a tale by Ben Church
ben church
comes soon enough.
9/11/01
by Ben Church
Dawson’s Creek
Gale held her newest child as if afraid that any moment she would be
torn from her. She wanted to call out to Mitch, but she could not
find the breath. Before her on the television screen a vision held
her spellbound. She had been woken only a few minutes before by
her daughter’s crying. She had turned on the television because
sometimes the sound of new voices made her curious enough to stop
her crying. Sure enough, the baby was not crying. But Gale was.
Pacey was not happy to answer the phone when it rang, but did so
anyway. “Hello?” he said groggily.
“Pacey?” a male voice said, sounding almost desperate.
“Dad?” Pacey had never heard his father like this before.
He could swear he was about to cry. Immediately his brain snapped
aware.
“What happened?”
Grams and Jennifer clung to each other, hardly daring to look away
from the television. Behind them, Jack held the phone receiver.
Toby was on the other line. Neither was speaking, they merely took
comfort in each other’s presence, long distance though it may
be.
Dawson sat up, not quite awake, and not registering the reason.
“Turn on the TV!” a voice from outside the room called
out. “Turn
on the news!” He realized it had been someone banging on the
door that had woken him.
Joey was almost frantic when she couldn’t get through to Bessie
on the phone. Across the room Audry listened dully to the news
on the radio. Bessie’s line was busy. The moment she hung up,
the phone rang. She picked it up. “Hello?”
“Joey?” Bessie said. “I just tried to call you,
were you on the phone?”
That afternoon Mitch hung up the phone finally. He and Gale had been
talking to Dawson all day. He immediately picked up the
phone to call others that he knew. He didn’t know who to start
with. He suddenly wanted to talk to everyone who’d ever been a
part of his life.
Pacey sighed with relief. He’d just heard that both Doug and
Gretchen were both present and accounted for. He wondered if
Dawson had heard the news. Of course he had. Everyone had by this
point. Worry and fear had faded from Pacey’s heart.
For the first time in his life, he wanted to join the military. He
wanted to be one of the ones to get the bastards that had done this.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel
Willow was making breakfast with the TV on in the background. She was
up quite early, earlier than usual, in truth, she hadn’t
gotten much sleep anyway. She been researching the resurrection
spell, and doing repairs on the Buffy-Bot.
Behind her, Tara entered. “You do intend to sleep again
right?” she asked.
Willow smiled, still mixing pancake batter. “Eventually. What
are you doing up so early?”
“It’s harder to sleep when you’re not next to
me.” Tara smiled. “You need any help?” She picked
up a jar of raspberry jam from the
counter. Willow had apparently been planning on making Dawn’s
lunch when she was done.
Willow heard Tara gasp, and then heard the jar shatter on the kitchen
floor. She spun, expecting the worst. But there was no Demon,
no supernatural horror. Her eyes suddenly fixed on the TV.
“What’s happening?” she asked softly. Then the
second plane hit.
And she whimpered. She and Tara reached for each other blindly.
Neither looking away.
Cordelia had a headache. She wondered if maybe she’d had a
vision in her sleep. Why did Dennis have the TV on? He was usually
more considerate. “Dennis, turn the TV off I’m trying to
sleep!” she called out, and buried her head under the pillow.
Instead, her ghostly room mate turned up the volume. She gritted her
teeth. If he wasn’t already dead, she would have killed him.
Then
the words she was hearing penetrated.
She bolted from her bed and dashed into the living room. She snatched
up the phone, and then froze. She didn’t know who to call.
The Hotel? What could any of them do about this? Her parents?
Xander held Anya’s hand as the watched the terror unfold.
Xander only half listened to the horrified babble of his mother on the
phone.
“With Humans like this, “ Anya said softly. “Who
needs Demons?”
“What the hell are we fighting for man?” Gunn asked no one
in particular. Wesley had brought in a television after hearing the
news on
the radio. “We could get rid of all the Demons in the world,
and then we’d just manage to wipe ourselves out. What’s
the point?”
Wesley didn’t have an answer. Neither did Fred, watching
silently and unseen on the balcony. She’d escaped that other
dimension for this?
Spike didn’t know what to think. He was evil. But even he
couldn’t figure out the evil of humans. The same faith that
could ward him
off now was a weapon against humans again.
Demon’s could cry. And Lorne proved it.
Dawn sat sandwiched between Willow and Tara wishing with all her heart
that Buffy and her mother were here. All three were silent,
staring at the television. In the doorway, the Buffy-Bot looked on,
confused.
“What’s going on?”
Angel was over half a world away when he heard the news. Of all the
times to be away from those he loved. Of all the times not to be
where the bad guys were. That was what hurt most. He fought evil.
That was his job. His entire reason for being. And he had no
one to fight. He didn’t know who the bad guys were. He
didn’t know what to do. And that scared him.
Giles heard the call waiting beep for what must have been the
twentieth time. No doubt old friends from England trying to get hold
of him.
“I’m sorry Anya, but I must go now.” He sighed.
“Yes, I’ll look into whether or not there are any
Vengeance Demons we can call on.”
He hung up sighing. If only it were that easy. But he had lived
through horrendous times before. He talked to a few friends, all the
while
hearing the call waiting. He ended the day at Buffy’s house.
He was the oldest, and they were looking to him. Too bad he had
nothing
comforting to say.
On September 11th, I got up at eight, nine in the morning, earlier
than my custom at the time. I was planning on making a trip to the
bay.
The first thing I heard that morning was the news on my clock radio,
waking me. A plane had hit the world trade center.
I didn’t think much of it. I’d heard tales of a small
plane hitting the world trade center way back almost before my time.
I’m only in my
early 20’s. I got in the shower.
When I got out, my father was waiting for me. Had I heard the news?
Yes I had. No, I hadn’t. A second plane had hit while I was in
the
shower. Obviously not an accident. I was a little shocked, but
still, it hadn’t rocked my world. Then I found out they were
not small planes.
They were 747’s.
I made my way downstairs to the TV and just watched. Smoke billowing
from the twin towers. It didn’t look real. Particularly the
one shot
of the anchorman standing across the river from the towers. Surreal.
I wasn’t upset yet. I was curious. Like a passerby at a car
accident.
Morbid, maybe. But not really effected. I was a bit smug actually.
Hah, the towers are still standing you Assholes, give it up, you suck.
My dad pointed out the same thing. They kept trying at the towers and
they would not fall. No one could knock down the towers.
“You’ve managed to kill just about everyone else, but like
a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!” said Captain
Kirk.
Down at the bottom were little updates and bulletins as the played the
plane footage over and over. I was beginning to get scared. Dad
was in the garage getting ready to leave for work.
“Dad the Pentagon’s been hit!”
“Dad the National Mall’s on fire!”
“Dad there were explosions outside the White House!”
“Dad, I think part of one of the towers fell! Like a corner or
something.”
Dad left for work. And I decided that I would not let some Terrorist
Assholes keep me from having my day out. I was scared by
this point. Would I be able to get past DC? There are a lot of
planes in the air. Where else are they trying to hit? Will the
bridge
be closed? Will bridge be there? Will it go away while I’m
crossing it?
I went anyway. Was I being disrespectful of what had happened? Some
might say yes. I don’t think I was.
I did not listen to music on my trip. I had it on DC101, wanting to
know that Elliot and the Class had to say about the events. I only
heard Elliot speak once. “I can’t believe the World Trade
Center is gone.” Less than ten minutes after me and my father
had gloated
about how the towers still stood, they both fell. I called everybody
from my cell phone who’s number I could remember off the top of
my head.
Anger didn’t hit me for many days. I was too shocked, to
scared. What was coming next? Who did it? Everyone was denying
responsibility, didn’t terrorists want everyone to know
who’d done it? Was World War Three about to start? Would the
world
end? Was the Book of Revelation about to come true? Would I be
drafted?
Eventually, I found myself wanting to hear people talk about it. Not
just world leaders, and friends. But celebrities. Actors, sports
stars, Musicians. And finally, fictional characters. I bought every
comic I could find that got published about the day. These are
only two of the shows that I wondered about. Please, add your own
chapters to this, your own tales.
Ben Church
Peter Cowan
"ben church" <b_ch...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:96eae1b7.02060...@posting.google.com...
> There's a Dawson's Creek story up here too, but fear not, the Buffage
> comes soon enough.
>
that no matter how good your story is, by the time it reaches the NG it is
pretty well unreadable.
Peter
PS -Just trying to be helpful
Paul Blay
It was probably intended to be plain text. It looks like a typical "Paste from
MS Word" result.
Tools -> AutoCorrect -> AutoCorrect -> [ ] Replace Text as you type (uncheck)
Tools -> AutoCorrect -> AutoFormat -> [ ] Replace straight quotes with smart quotes (uncheck)
Exact details vary with version of Word.
Incidently the text can probably be viewed as originally intended by saving as
a text file and adding
<html><pre> to the start,
</pre></html> to the end and then opening in an Internet Browser.
BrendanM
news:ae1s4k$aaf$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
Actually, I usually write in word, but I like to leave the autoreplace stuff
on. (the only difficulty I have is when I use an ellipsis... it turns into
a single period.)
I do a CTRL+A, copy and paste it into notepad, and then CTRL+A that and copy
and paste it into OE.
Just keep an eye on the ellipses.
-Brendan
Paul Blay
Yah, but Google* (mis)treats characters differently to Outlook Express.
Here are some 'smart quotes' pasted from Notebook into OE. 灯 (Plain text,
Encoding Western European (Windows)
* As used by original poster
Paul Blay
>
> Yah, but Google* (mis)treats characters differently to Outlook Express.
>
> Encoding Western European (Windows)
>
> * As used by original poster
And here's the same text via Google ""
*Waits to see if I'm right*
*Wishes he'd checked _before_ saying the above* ^_^
Paul Blay
*ahem* OK, so I don't know why the orginal poster got zapped, and that didn't.