h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is the day when i finally talk about what's going on in my country. I'm an American, and it seems that America has been through a lot lately. It hurts my heart to see what is going on, but it conflicts my mind when i think about the fact that it's a mere sliver of what happens every day to lots of people. I feel terrible for what has happened to my country, but what is a country, in reality? can't i just feel bad because they were people? I never asked for my nation to be a superpower. Our government has been blown so out of proportion, I don't know if people in other countries realize that the citizens may disagree radically with what the government has been doing. We've been saying for years that the U.S. should keep its nose out of other countries and stop being the international Police. But because of the policies of our governing bodies, thousands of our own people have died.
That day is one i'll never forget, not one detail. I went to work for 8:30. I stopped at the corner store to buy lunch and cigarettes, and the lady behind the counter was watching the news. I saw a tall building with smoke at the top. I asked her what happened and she told me that a plane crashed in new york and that she didn't know why. I walked to work and, about five minutes later, my mom called. i could hear the terror in her voice. She said that planes had crashed into the WTC and the pentagon, and she said bombs were at the state department and the capital. This was when we didn't know when it was going to stop. She said it looked like a siege on T.V., like New York was a war zone. I had taken a trip to New York with my boyfriend, who's from there, about a month before the attacks. I loved the city so much, and my memories were still so vibrant that it physically hurt to think about it as a war zone. Also, i had two friends who were supposed to fly to new york on that day and one who was coming home from Chicago. To hear the fear in my mother's voice was enough to scare the bejeezus out of me, since she had always been the one who told me not to be scared. I stepped outside to gather myself and have a cigarette. One of the guys who works in the back saw how shaken i was and asked what was wrong. I told him, and he went to the back and found a black and white television for me to watch the news. I plugged it in and turned it on, and i couldn't believe what i saw. The towers were still there, but with huge gashes in them. Little specks fell from the higher floors, and a voice came on to inform us that those little specks were actual people and that, yes folks, all of this is coming to you live from CBS. I watched people plunge to their deaths live on T.V. And then the cameras shook and the whole thing came down- first one tower, then another. I was in utter disbelief. I kept trying to wake myself up; i was positive that this had to be a dream. Mind you, at the time we didn't know when it would stop. That was the prevailing thought for me, "Okay, we've just been attacked. let me wrap my mind around that one. A plane at tower one, a plane at tower two, a plane at the capital, and what's next?" Everything i was sure about evaporated. Even if now i am able to re-incorporate some of the things i take for granted, i will never forget those hours when i knew nothing, had nothing to hold as a constant. For all i knew at that moment, a plane could have plunged out of the sky in my city.
Being that my Honey is a New Yorker, i left work and rushed to our house. He had been online all morning (the phone lines were impossibly jammed) and had accounted for his family and closest friends. People began to call our house, wondering if this person or that person and their families were okay. We kept the news on all day, and people came by, sometimes just to sit with friends for a moment, though some stayed with us all day. We formed a network and accounted for everyone we knew.
That day was hard but, somehow, the next day was even worse. All the friends we had from new york congregated at our house. Some were hysterical, while others were a few shades away from comatose. My Honey got a report that his family doctor had been killed because she was the head doctor for the fire department and had rushed in to help, only to be crushed when the building came down. It turned out to be a false report, but it was a wakeup call that, though the people we had thought of first were okay, we would inevitably know someone who had been killed. That was compounded by the news reports. What got to me were those cell phone calls from the people on the planes. I imagined what it must have been like to get a call like that from someone you loved dearly. And every five minutes, you heard a new story of someone who was lost, a whole life snuffed out in an instant. What also shook me was something that happened that evening, after all of our friends had left. My Honey and I were sitting in different parts of the house. He called out to me, "Look at that plane. It's flying so low!" I ran to the window and froze. Was it one of the two or three planes coming in from international flights, only to crash in my backyard. Then i saw that it was a fighter jet. To see warplanes patrolling the skies is enough, but i remember thinking, "Is that a U.S. plane? What's going to happen here?" I could talk all day about psychology and stress responses, but what really happened was that i saw a plane and I was scared. That day, that was the day that i cried.
And since then, we've had a million new camera angles, a million new insights. Our news media seems to just be scrambling for viewers now. Everything has a spin on it so you can't get to the heart of the matter and just get the information, and it gets me so mad i don't even want to watch the news, but then i feel like i'm not doing my part, not keeping abreast. But we've since been attacked with anthrax, and nobody has anything at all new to say about that one. What does the government know? what are they doing to find out more? your guess is as good as mine. Information has become a commodity and ratings, not education, has been the goal for these past few months.
So now we have a new plane crash. I watched the news early this morning. They said they didn't know anything, but that it WAS NOT a terrorist action. Of course, they can't possibly know that, and they may very well turn out to be wrong, but since they control the flow of information, they can pretty much say what they want to. I just want to know that it's over. I just want to be sure again. And I guess what i have to ask myself is, am i willing to fight for that? It's a really tough question.

A powerful entry Maggaroux.