Digital Fortress

I can still clearly remember the night of September 11, 2001. I was in third year high school. I got home at 9:30PM (because I’m from a night school) and as usual, after eating dinner, I hurried in front of the T.V. and started scanning through all the channels. I came across MSNBC on ZoeTV Channel 11 (wala pa kaming cable no’n) and saw a factory with a giant chimney blowing huge black smokes. I skipped on that channel thinking that it was just another business news or news that’s something to do with environbmental issues. 

But later, I came back on the same channel and realized that it was actually New York City’s World Trade Center! I can’t believe on what I saw earlier. Maybe I was switching between channels too fast that I didn’t even realized that it was actually a building. At first, I don’t know what happened. Was it just an ordinary building on a fire? I don’t know the answer until I witnessed the second plane hitting the South Tower. If reality shows were popular in those days, that moment might be reality TV’s most horrifying footage of all time.

[image missing]
“A factory with a giant chimney blowing huge black smokes.”

I couldn’t sleep on that night. Maybe I was kind of excited to see the developments in the next few hours, probably in the morning, Maybe I was expecting to see more terrorist attacks.(?) But fortunately, it was “only” on The Pentagon and Pennsylvania.
I went outside to wash my clothes early on the morning of September 12. I saw smokes above the sky — like the smokes that rises from the ruins of the Twin Towers. I asked myself at that moment “what if those smokes are actually from New York?” Naah…what a stupid question!

Sometimes, I wonder if I can just literally ‘dive’ through old pictures of New York on books and be teleported instantly to NY on the day the image was taken so I can tell people of New York to stay away from the building on September 11, 2001. Just thinking that the Twin Towers were gone forever make me sad. Yes…I mean the building itself…not the people who died there… When I was in Grade 6, I was totally fascinated by skycrapers and I even dream to go to New York just to see the Empire State Building, the Chrysler and WTC. But it’s so sad that I’ll just be able to see a memorial on that site. I just hope they rebuild the towers (and with the help of advanced technology, install a shield to make it less vulnerable to attacks….)

And now, America is facing another September tragedy. Good for them… That’s what they get from being a superpower and overconfidence and also their nonsense war on Iraq. Americans were all shocked on 9/11 (it’s accepable since that attack came in a surprise) but being ’shocked’ after a devastating hurricane is a bit overacting. I just can’t accept it (see my last last post). A hurricane is predictable unlike WTC attack and the Asian tsunami.

Since that event, the date “September 11″ is not just another date. And people born on that day is…well…malas?