The Towers
By Charles Miller
Copyright 2012 Charles Miller
The Towers
He woke up to his phone playing his current favorite song, “I love Rock N’ Roll”. The sun was shining in through the windows, casting light upon his room. It was another day, a day that he was excited for. He was experiencing the joy of life, the thrill, and excitement.
Life was good. He lived alone with his father, and he went to a prestigious private school in New York City. Their apartment was quite nice, plenty of room and on a high floor. Some days he would look out and see the expanse of the city before him, feeling the need to conquer it, to rise to the top and become a legend, but he was only 13. He was restricted to the confines of school. Not that he didn’t excel, being one of the top students in his class.
School came easy to him; he had the ability to coast through and still get excellent grades. Everyone else in his school spent all their time studying, but he could afford to dream. He dreamed about what life he could live, and spent countless hours on the internet researching the world, how it worked, and what he could do. The internet was one of the best things ever. It provided a window for him to see the world without leaving the safety of his apartment. The sky was the limit.
He was well versed in political dealings, and he had debated with people twice or three times his age about his beliefs. Many did not agree with him and many did, but that didn’t matter. He could believe what he wanted. Nobody could change that, his own personal drive for success brought him forward. The days ticked by and he kept mentally moving up the ladder. He didn’t waste a single minute. Life was too precious to him, and to him he was living on borrowed time.
He was a mistake; he was the result of a one night stand. He was a failure, and he would have been lost. But his father saved him, the abortion was cancelled, and he was eternally grateful for this. Abortion was, understandably, something he abhorred. He could not understand why people could choose to end a life, that could become exceedingly promising, that could save people, and one that could bring financial and economic prosperity to himself and his loved ones. Such a concept of destruction was a concept of hate to him. And so he lived like he was a miracle, and that he was.
After considering all this he rolled out of bed and stood up in the plush carpet. The boy walked into the kitchen and prepared some cereal, starting a new day. Breakfast wasn’t his favorite meal, but he knew it was good for him and did as he was told, plus it kept him alert and aware throughout the day. While he was eating he planned his day.
The American Civil War was of interest to him lately, so he decided to find out what would have happened if the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas) would have been a decisive CSA victory, and if they had been able to drive the Union to Washington D.C., and thereby altering the war significantly.
He stood up to do what he did almost every day, to look out the window and see the entire city before him, to see its life and its vibrancy, and the possibilities it offered. “New York is the perfect place to live”, he decided. It was, after all, the capital of the free economic world. He withdrew the blinds and froze. His mind was blank, not comprehending the sight before him. In place of what should have been two rectangular spires rising up into the sky, almost denying the sky of its domain, was the same two rectangles, however scarred with gashes on the sides, fire spewing out, and thick black smoke curling into the air.
As his mind retreated into itself only two definite thoughts came through: “NO!” and “Father!”
He was out the door in mere seconds, stopping for nothing. His control was gone, and so he ran. The elevator was on the bottom so he took the stairs, barely taking a step on each set, jumping over most of the stairs. From landing to landing. He was out of breath when he reached the lobby. He turned the corner to see fire engines racing past the glass doors, lights and sirens blaring. There was no other traffic, but the streets were full of people.
He ran outside, and plowed into the crowd. He forced his way into the street, which was a little less crowded; most cars were pulled off to the side to make room for fire engines and other emergency vehicles. Everyone was in shock, looking up, and noticing little else. The boy himself looked up, and his flight took on new strength. With the fear racing through his veins, he ran faster, but after he had made it only a hundred yards he heard a rumbling, a deep strong rumbling.
It hit him like a lightning bolt; his whole nervous system was shocked into the reality that a tower was falling. Looking up, however he noticed it was not the tower his father was in.
That was all he needed. He did the opposite of everyone else. He didn’t look up. Instead he lowered his head and continued his run to the tower, the last shreds of hope lingering within him. He had an overpowering feeling, that feeling that something bad would happen at any moment, and you need to go faster.
In an instant a large grey-brown wave hit him. He was blinded instantly. His mouth and nose was clogged with the dust that was almost as thick as water. Trying to go on was of no avail, and he tripped over something and fell. He struggled to get up, but his exhaustion finally broke into his panicked mind. He couldn’t get up.
He lay there, gasping for breath, trying and failing to get back on his feet, when someone grabbed him and hauled him into the nearest building. Nothing was left in him to struggle, he accepted it. He slipped into unconsciousness.
There was screaming everywhere, people were pressed up against the windows, trying to see what was going on outside. The street was almost imperceptible, but he could make out people running past.
The building was a little convenience store, full of practically anything. The man who had carried him in seemed to be the owner, and he was getting water for the people. The store was quite crowded, but everyone was at the windows, he looked around, trying to take everything in. His watch said he had been unconscious for about ten minutes, and he felt surprisingly reenergized, but very thirsty at the same time. He ran over to the owner and asked for some water. The man gave him two bottles of Aquafina. He poured one over his head to get the dust off, and drank the other. His thirst was quenched. He started toward the door.
The young boy pushed the door open, and he was immediately shocked back into the reality of what was happening outside. Only one tower still stood. His father’s tower. The North tower stood defiantly, rising into the black sky, with a red hole in the side, belching more black smoke. Terror once again grabbed hold of his mind.
He took off, sprinting down the street, the tower was getting closer, and it was harder to look up at it, because it seemed to rise up and over him. He ran past people with masks, men running in the same direction as him, to help. Other people, obviously injured were running the opposite direction, some were being treated and some, with less serious injuries were quietly wandering the street. The utter chaos, however, did not reach him. He had one goal, and he was going to accomplish it.
The fatigue was slowly working its way in, but fatigue is a message that could be ignored, for a time. The road was long, but the tower was getting much closer. The boy saw himself rushing past firemen, sprinting up the stairs, breaking his way up to his father, to save him.
He started to slow, there was nothing left. He had used it all. The feeling he had experienced before in track, the feeling of utter exhaustion. He stopped, sat at a bench, to rest for a few seconds. He needed to at least half-catch his breath.
The boy put himself back together, for one more sprint to the building, where he would rest again before the long climb to the top. The rubble was visible at the end of the street. Fire engines were blaring, men were shouting, the chaos was everywhere. But New York was uniting under one goal, the last tower.
Over the noise, the roar of the ci
ty at work, came another noise. A noise that was much louder. It was like a deep roar, like a monster breathing its last breath.
The tower was falling. It started with the spire visibly sinking into the top of the tower, then the fire was extinguished by the top of the tower falling into it. The rest began to fall. The whole tower was falling in upon itself onto the burning rubble of its sister tower. And the men and women of the World Trade Center came down with it.
The boy stopped at the sound. The sight was not possible. He kept running a few meters. Stopped. He fell to his knees. His journey had ended. His last purpose had vanished. His life had become purposeless. There were no tears, he didn’t even notice the rolling dust cloud running right into him. He was numb. His brain had nothing in it, the sparkle of intelligence, the light of ambition, and the city to conquer had gone away.
He stood up an orphan. The 13-year old was orphaned of parents and orphaned of the joy of life. He had no direction. No goal to walk to. Nothing at all.