"How long are you gonna be? Dinner's almost on the table!" My mom, Donna says. It's our monthly dinner, and I'm late. As usual, but it is a special day. It's the 9th of September 2012, the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I went to visit Ground Zero today, just to pay my respects. It was emotional, sure, but it felt good to relive the day that ruined so many peoples lives, but saved mine.
"I'm almost there Mom, I'm just on the bus. Just wait a few more minutes, you're too impatient!"
"Okay, just don't be too long. You're always late, and Mikey's not even coming today! Says he has, 'important plans', and can't come to one short dinner with his family! One day, you're both gonna come and stay for a dinner with your parents, whether you want to or not!"
"Yes mom. I've got to go now, Lindsey's calling, bye!" Actually my wife isn't calling, but I'm getting dodgy looks from fellow passengers. Lindsey's actually on tour with Mindless Self Indulgence right now, and Bandit's at my moms. I took a day off from my life, just a day, to relive a different day. The one day I discovered what I wanted to do. I also realised that, when all those people were dying, I was on my way to go and draw cartoons. I was doing nothing to save anybodies life, and that made me feel worthless. So I quit my job, started a band, and planned to save peoples lives. It was the only thing I'd discovered, that I was good at: singing. I'm not good at anything else- no. I'm not meant to be thinking like this. Those thoughts are what made me turn to alcohol, pills and eventually cocaine. Now though, I'm off the 'anti-depressants'. I got clean, and happier.
So right now, I'm just loitering in the in between stages of writing and touring. I don't feel like I'm saving anyone. These days are the worst: when I have nothing to do but meaningless chores.
I stare out the window at the city that changed my life. The City of Dreams, or so they say. That's not me. To me, New York is probably the place where all of the most important things in my life have happened, but they're not all happy moments.
The skyline is filled with tall buildings, silhouetted against the evening horizon. Tall and thin, they look almost fragile. Then, I remember, they are.
I glance around the bus. All the people on here have been affected by 9/11: the business-woman in the suit; the old man carrying all his belongings with him; the young mother and her child that's playing with the Batman action figure in front of me. Maybe someones husband had been in there, maybe someones mother. The planes that flew into the towers, setting alight the buildings that held millions. Millions that died soon after.
Why those people did it, I'll never know. What I just hope is that no one ever does it again. Something that bad should never be repeated.
The boy with the Batman figurine pokes his mommy and points to something out the window. She looks up from her phone to face the window. Her face is a picture of horror. I turn to look, and see back into my memories.
Smoke. Billowing clouds of smoke against the evening sky- the only difference from that frightful day. Apart from the second building, of course.
If my geography is correct, the Millennium building has a plane lodged in its side. Thick, black fog is currently pouring out into the air. Flames flicker from the hole cradling the aircraft. Tears pour down my face, following the path they have already once taken before. By now, everyone on the bus is watching, and the speed of the vehicle has slowed to a crawl- the driver a observer too.
Soon, we have stopped, the entire streets traffic at a standstill, watching the devastation.
I relive the terror of that frightful day that changed my life, and it's just as bad, if not worse. I can see the fire-trucks, hear the screams of the pedestrians and they take me back.
