9/11 Short Stories

The wind twirled around the columns, engulfing the girl standing in the center. Her hands raised as she looked to the open ceiling. She swayed with the wind, letting it push her and guide her.

It was midnight, while he sat there nearly asleep, contemplating on something that made him dismal, and sorrowful, he heard someone knocking on his door.

I stretch out on my white cotton bed sheets and yawn uncontrollably. Last night was unreal. I don't really remember anything that happened. I know I was with Angelina and Tara for most of the night. And then I was with Dustin. I didn't want to think right now, I wanted to sleep. But there was no way I could stay in bed any longer. I have to wake up early, even on weekends. It's some sort of "being productive" bullshit. Also I need something for this hangover, so I pull myself out of bed and walk to the bathroom.

It was sad to see it in this state of disrepair, and she hoped to remedy that soon.

The rain got harder as Tina walked alone in tears. She missed her daughter Iris. Tina thought about all the good times they had together. She wondered why Iris had done that to herself. Iris was a skinny young girl who killed herself. Iris wa bullied at school for how far she was, so Iris decided to stop eating. Tina was walking in the rain. It had been a year since Iris was gone. She thought back to that day. Tina woke up and made herself some coffee. She nibbled on a muffin that she bought from the store yesterday. She took Iris to school and then went to work. Tina went throughout her day as usual, but what she didn’t know was that soon her daughter would take her own life. Iris got home and went up into her bedroom. Tina wouldn’t get home

The evening was ominous and gray. The cold wind blew softly, and carried a heavy scent of blood through the streets. A loud intense screech pierced the ears of its listener, leaving the body trembling in fear.

I couldn’t breath. Dust was everywhere. Our little town of Lakewood in Oklahoma, has vanished. Cars were now piles of dust on the road. Crops were now dry and nowhere to be seen. My eyes burned and itched. Our house was once a home, but now it looked dark. Dark and scary. It was not as white as it used to be. It always looked happy and felt like a home. But now our house, didn’t feel or look like a home. The walls were cracked and the windows were full of dust. The floors were scratched and clawed. Our beds and blankets are not safe places anymore. The food that we consume, tastes raw, bitter, and has no flavor. We’re eating and swallowing dust everyday. Pa has tired marks on his face. Ma doesn’t cook us our favorite meals anymore. Rose and

A morbid melancholy stole over me. Anxiety gnawed at my heart. I was a living corpse. There was a feeling of chill in the air every day as I felt. I faked illness so as not to go to school. Despair hangs heavy in the stifling air. It was a dreary day for me , cold and without sunshine. I dread people and always avoid people. The door was locked from the inside. A cold grey light crept under the curtains. The windows were secured with locks and bars. The room felt cold and sterile.The flowers faded for want of water. A single lamp was suspended from the ceiling. The clock ticked louder and louder in a quiet room. I regarded the room as a refuge from the outside

Her shadow was now slowly cringing into the room through the slightest gap between the door and the floor. ‘Please don’t come in!’ I shouted in my head. I did not want her searching for her wallet or key. Joel would have wakened up. Her shadow stayed for a bit then banished. She probably went off to find another way. I hoped she would eventually give up and sleep. I heard her searching for coins. I doubted if she could find enough for her half-pint. My eyelids weighed a ton. Once again the night swallowed me into its endless darkness.

He arrived at a house, an average-sized home with a dark brown door. He lightly knocked on the dark brown door and patiently waited. He pretended not to notice, that he saw a shadow peak through the living room curtains before closing them shut again. And when the door opened, he was greeted by exactly who he had wanted to see.

I collapse into my sisters arms. The news of my husband's death is too much for me to handle and I weep with a sudden wild abandonment. I had always warned Brently to be careful when he was working and I suppose the railroad disaster was no one's fault at all. Still I feel empty inside, but not in the way in which I had been mourning. With grief still weighing heavily upon me, I wanted to be alone. The upstairs bedroom is where I open the window and begin to think deeply. The warm spring air that enters the room gives me a renewed sense of freedom. The exhaustion that had haunted my body seemed to dissipate with each breath of air. My heart was racing as I came to the realization that I was finally free! Free from the control of my husband

“I...I know it’s hard for you and it’s only been a little since your parents-” She stopped herself, staring at the ground, not being able to bring herself to say it.

     But pulling myself through his window, five feet from the ground, I find him here. He is everywhere. The familiar scent of coffee grounds and spearmint is so heavy with memory that when it’s weight hits me, I wince in pain from the nostalgic agony. Everything was as he had left it: bed unmade, leather jacket draped over the chair, well worn converse — graffitied with song lyrics — next to the door. All were waiting for him. I was their equal; as dust covered and abandoned as the rest of his belongings in his dark bedroom.

We walked through the black darkness of Lightning Ridge for what felt like a bloody eternity, where every second felt like a minute and every minute felt like a damn hour. The thought of having no place to go made the massive walk silent and still. There were times when she gaze my way and mutter a question now and then. I would tell her about my life, wandering to places trying to escape the abusement at home.

Since then, sleep had been hard to come by. In the pit of my stomach was an aggressive, aching nausea that fought with me regularly into the early morning hours. Worst of all, was the feeling that something important had been left behind, something irreplaceable. For weeks I told myself that I would find time to go back, to gather whatever that may be. The fear of witnessing the destruction held me hostage, still a greater force at that point than the pain of withdrawal.