Where I was...

Five years ago, I was sitting roughly in the same position as I am now. I had my fingers poised over the keyboard, or my hand resting on the mouse. I was doing whatever it was that I was doing--possibly attempting to add to a science fiction novel I was working on.

My brother called me from work and asked if I had seen the images on the news. I told him I had not. He told me to turn on the television. It was about noon when he called, so I missed the initial shock of what was going on. The footage was old--the Pentagon, the North Tower, and the South Tower had already been hit and had already been burning. News switched from story to story at a frenetic pace as the nation amassed details and specifics.

I spent the afternoon typing pieces of information into a text document so that I could follow along. Whenever an update came over the news, I would type it down. Whenever a "current" fact changed enough, I would replace it. I continued doing this until about 6:00 P.M., when the special reports went off the air locally, and local news stations reported about Ohio. Whenever an update came over the news, I would type it down and whenever a "current" fact changed enough, I would replace it.

There was a call for volunteers--I heard of trips being organized to travel to New York to deal with the collapsed rubble and debris. Not knowing how I could help, I remained here in Ohio. I do not know if I developed any guilt over that, or whether I coped with it in the background.

My writing took on an anger that was not present before. The subjects of most of my new story ideas involved chasing down some evil organization, punishing them dearly for the pain they had inflicted. A story idea that I had revised away from referring to terrorism got changed back, a grisly ending put in the works to deal with the perpetrators of the vile act.