My cellphone rings, waking me up. I turn it off. My regular phone rings. I decide to pick it up. It's
Cal.
"You watching TV?"
"No." I groggily answer.
"Turn on the
TV." Uh-oh. Feeling of
anxiety and
dread washes over. I was woken up by a phone call on
9-11, and woke up many mornings after that filled with anxiety. "
Another plane went down." Shit. The image on television is of a huge plume of smoke rising from somewhere in
Queens. I can't believe it is happening here in New York again. "
Osama Bin Laden said there would be a
rain of planes." Cal says. He usually jumps to the worst case scenario conspiracy theory. At this point we have no information, but
CNN is saying that a 767 went down. "Ok. Seya Later."
"Thank you." I wake up my girlfriend and we sit groggily, watching the events unfold. Eventually they figure out it was
American Airlines Flight 587 bound for the
Dominican Republic, and it was an
Airbus A300, not a 767. For some reason the plane's takeoff was delayed for a half hour. It went down only a minute after it took off. Eventually, the cameras show up near the site and we begin to see images of homes on fire. Witnesses say the plane was on fire before it fell. At this point, it is too early to tell if there was foul play. Nonetheless, all airports in NY are shut down again. All bridges and tunnels in and out of NY are shut down again. All I can think about is the fact that I am supposed to fly to California in two days, out of
the same airport, no less. My girlfriend and I fall back asleep on the couch with the news on.