The itinerary was simple enough, move her friend's car to a spot where it won't get towed, drive Amy over to O'Hare, drop her off, and be on my way to work. Hopefully I would arrive to work on time at 8am and Amy would have to wait several hours for her flight, which left around 10:30am. This was okay with her because she told me she likes to "people watch." However, like I said, we should have gotten up earlier because the morning traffic to and from O'Hare on a Tuesday morning is very heavy and so it was that morning. By 7:20am, we were still stuck on the Kennedy Expressway on our way to the airport and this was usually the time I left my apartment to get to work on time. I knew I was going to be late. Thankfully Amy had her cell phone and was able to tell my boss that I had just dropped my sister off and was going to hit heavy traffic on my way back to work and that I would probably be a little late. "No problem," said Kate, my supervisor, "just take your time, the guys had some problems with the blender this morning so they are not going strong yet, so don't worry about racing to get here. See you when you get in." Ah, simple enough and I handed the phone back to my sister.

Traffic was pretty bad all the way to Harlem and then, mysteriously, we were all able to go 70mph plus on our way. I drove to terminal three's curbside baggage check-in, next to all the Delta signs, and I helped get my sister's luggage out of the trunk. I told Amy that it was great having her stay with me for a week and told her to have fun. "All right, bye," was her response and she picked up her large orange colored suitcase and lumbered it inside the terminal, all the while carrying what seems to be about two or three other carry-on items. I got back in my car and speeded down the exits of the airport to get back on I-190 and I-90, towards downtown and the Loop area. I think it was around 7:40am that I dropped her off.

I listen to "Eric and Kathy in the morning" on Mix 101.9 FM. While morning radio hosts can be a bit annoying, I rather like Eric and Kathy and the odd discussions they have and the interesting people that call in. Eric seems to run the show, always being the one explaining rules of contests and what topic they are going to talk about next. I wish Kathy would show some on-air initiative and lead some of the morning discussions, but I digress. So I was listening to their show, not really listening to what they were talking about and I casually hear Barry Keif, the news reporter, say that a plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

I first imagine a small, two-propeller plane, like the one that crash-landed into the lawn of the White House. Maybe it was cloudy, or some mechanical problem, or even an unconscious pilot. Then after a break of commercials and maybe another topic about something, Barry comes back on to say that he is watching TV at that moment and seeing a bunch of smoke coming out of the north twin tower of the World Trade Center. Melissa, the traffic reporter is watching it also and she says something like "there's another plane" or "another plane just hit it." What? You mean you're probably just seeing some replay footage the station has, right? Some amateur video some tourist took, not expecting to catch footage of a plane smacking into a building, right? Barry's voice broadcasts through my car radio that he just saw, live, a second plane crash into the other tower of the World Trade Center.

I kid myself on being sort of smart and I came to the conclusion that the odds that two planes accidentally hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center within 18 minutes of each other are astronomical; this must be a terrorist attack. But even then I was imagining two little Sessna type planes hitting the buildings. Melissa later speaks that the replayed footage of the second plane crash shows a plane with jets. Okay, then a small Lear jet, someone's stolen private planes. I then hear the awful news from either Barry or Melissa (I can't remember whom), that sources from a Boston newspaper are reporting that the planes were commercial planes, that they had people aboard. That someone would hijack a plane and slam it into a building; that was just unthinkable to me.

I simply could not believe the news, I mean I trusted that I was getting the accurate report from the radio, but I was in shock at the terrorist act. I thought of hijackers and the bad '70s and '80s movies, showing Arabs as the hijackers. Probably because of the terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics. I mentally slapped my wrist for immediately thinking of Arabs as the hijackers, for all I knew they were red-neck anti-government men. When I heard that the planes were 757 and 767s, my mind pictured a plane full of people head hostage, not realizing that soon that would be plowing into skyscrapers. That's when the reports of the Pentagon being hit came in.

A wave a realization swept me as it became clear that any city, not just New York City, were game for being attacked. Immediately my eyes went to the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Building, searching the skies for any plane in the air. As if my checking for planes would some how protect the buildings, like a cry from my car would warn the city. I was stuck in the morning traffic and I wanted to be in front of a TV, so I could constantly check the news channels for up to the date reports. What I really wanted was human contact, to check their face to see if they were as shocked as me. I looked at the cars around me and at the drivers and wondered if they knew what I knew. I couldn't discern from their looks if they had heard the news or not. And the traffic was moving so slowly, it was aggravating me to no end.

Melissa said there was another explosion and one of the towers was collapsing. She said where the first two hits were emitting black smoke, this one was emitting reddish or whitish smoke. My mind went right to a chemical weapons attack. Fortunately my imagination was worse than reality. The different colored smoke was just all the dust and concrete being tossed into the air. But there must have been a bomb placed at the bottom of the towers, how could a building like that collapse if it was hit near the top? It was only hours later did I find out that the buildings didn't have a steel skeleton but that the outside walls of the structures were the support and that the super hot burning jet fuel was the cause for the collapse.

The next report of a plane currently in the air that was hijacked was just too much. It seemed like the skies were populated with hijacked airplanes and that soon we would be hearing of buildings all over America hit by a plane full of helpless passengers. "Good thing my sister is stuck at O'Hare and not on a plane," I thought to myself. Or at least so I thought. For at that moment my sister was on a plane. Since she arrived so early to the airport, the airline offered her a seat on an earlier flight. Why not take it? I think the reason that I came out of this thing without my head being fucked with was because I didn't know that my sister was on a plane. I found out much later when I called my sister's cell phone. It was actually the third attempt in trying to call her. I left messages on her voice mail saying that since she was stuck at O'Hare and, thus, Chicago, she would have to take the blue line back into the city and somehow get her way to the south side.

Bring� bring� "Hi," says Amy.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Okay, a little crazy."

"Where are you?"

She pauses, "Memphis."

"Memphis? You were on a plane?" I couldn't believe that she was on a plane. I still can't wrap my mind around it. I've detached myself from it, purposely not thinking about the what ifs and whatnots; what if she was on one of those planes� don't go there.

I couldn�t keep my mind on work, once I got there. I arrived at work right when the second tower was collapsing, I heard a lady in the office say it as I walked to the lab I work in. My job is to take powdered teas samples, mix them in distilled water, and test to make sure it is within the company's specification; right amounts of sugar, citric acid, and pre mix. Whenever I could, I would walk into the break room, where a TV was tuned into ABC, and get updated on what was going down. I was also using my supervisor's laptop and Internet connection to get even more news reports. There were even updates on improvchicago.com's message board, one of the few web sites I regularly check for news in the improv world in Chicago.

Most of the buildings in the Loop seemed to be letting their employees go home early, I wish I could go home early. I didn't want to be at work, I wanted to be at home. Baseball games were cancelled, all planes were grounded, future flights were cancelled, the American stock markets were stopped, the Emmy awards were postponed, the Latin Grammies were cancelled; it seemed like the whole world was on hold. Even my level 1 class at Second City was cancelled.

Instead of calling friends and hanging with them for support and human contact, I went home after work and watched TV with my roommates, but hardly talking to them except for the occasional "this is crazy." I realize that what I was actually looking for in the news reports were an answer to why this was all happening. An explanation as how some one could hate America so much. My country isn't a perfect nation and our policies towards other nations makes it hard on some people, but I don't think we deserved this attack, especially on innocent civilians.

What bothers me a little is how easily the case against bin Laden is being gathered against him. I'm pretty sure that the reports on his involvement in this are accurate but other theories popped in my head at the time. One of the most scary is a la X-Files in that what if this whole thing was carried out by the government? What if our government did this and made it so that the evidence pointed to bin Laden so that our war-hawk cabinet and pro-military Bush led executive branch can have an excuse to get into a war. That's very far fetched and I agree with my roommate Aaron in that something like that would be too hard to conceal. But then my mind thinks maybe this was a bin Laden conceived thing but that our government new about it and let it happen so they could then go to war. I so hope that this is not the case. If it is, I might "accidentally" die soon if a governmental spook reads this online and decides my constitutional right to free speech is too close to comfort.

My sister was stuck in Memphis and all the rental cars were taken away. Her friend Robin was in Toronto with her boyfriend Matt and they had to cross the border to get back into the country. I asked them if they had trouble getting back and they said all that was done was a check of their trunk, and that was it. Matt drove Robin back to Chicago where her car was parked and she then drove back to Florida with a stop to Memphis to pick my sister up. Otherwise she would have been stuck in Memphis until Friday, when her flight was scheduled to continue it's way to Atlanta. The rest of her flight from Atlanta to Tampa would have happened days later. Basically Amy was fucked in terms of air travel is concerned.

I might be a product of the desensitization because even after watching all the footage I saw, I was still unemotional and numb. I actively searched online for photos of people falling from the towers, not because I was morbid, but because I knew that if anything might affect me and appall me, it would be those pictures. However, they had no affect on me. It wasn't until I saw footage of a ceremony in Berlin, Germany, days later, that I was affected. They were singing the first verse of "Amazing Grave" over and over and I started to cry; finally some emotion.

I will finish this essay on the attacks with some words on the amount of hate directed to Arabs in this country. I am a watered down Christian and I don't know much about Islam but I do know that the Koran does not advocate violence. Real Muslims would not do this and to blindly attack any Muslim living in America is disbickleble. Those that did this are extreme fundalmentalists and do not represent Muslims or Arabs. Also, those responsible are outside the US (although there may be some cells still in America which is very scary) and this is a time where all Americans should be united. This is not a time for division and attacking US citizens because they are Arab or Muslim is wrong. This country did the same thing back in World War II with the Japanese internment camps and such a thing is reprehensible.

My thoughts go out to the families of the dead and missing and to the Arabs and Muslims in America who are being attacked by idiots. I hope that we are able to come out of this dark period in one piece and those that were responsible for this get their just dessert. I also hope America is cautious in taking military action and is sure they are getting the right people. I also hope we all can get on with the business of living so that these terrorists don't win by making us look over our shoulders ever second. Back to normal, how normal we can get now that we are forever changed by these events.

All my love and God Bless,
Jon Forsythe


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