Blue Castle reverie

I walked in to physics, third..

I walked in to physics, third period, this morning, and I
wondered why the radio another teacher was carrying out was
still making noise, and then I realized that the TV was on,
and all you could see were great clouds of "billowy" (as
the reporters kept saying) smoke, and everyone was asking
what was going on, and I heard someone say "terrorist
attack", and it didn't really even hit me then. We sat
there, and watched on the telivision as the first, and then
second tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.
Occasionaly they would cut to a shot of the Pentagon, or
the Washington Mall, but mostly of the WTC, and later, the
spot where it had stood. You could see the footage of
people up in the building, leaning out windows, before it
collapsed. All throughout the day, its been all that
people are talking about. The explosions, the missing
planes, the death toll. Walking down the hall during one
class period, it was like surround sound of CNN, every
single classroom was tuned in, and the sound seeped out
into the hallways out of open doors, or around closed
ones. And yet it didn't really hit me until sixth period.
Then, I watched one of my classmates tell us how relieved
he was that he'd finally contacted his mom; the windows in
his uncles apartment had been blown out, but he hadn't been
there. I saw my friend start crying as she heard the first-
hand account of one man. And I heard the first death
count. I started shivering, uncontrollably; my entire body
was carpeted in goosebumps. I can't even begin to fathom
the scale of this calamity, but I have a terrifying feeling
that it has only just begun.