Two, short, fictional accounts of 9/11/2001 based on stories heard, seen and read.

Estella

Flame pushes me to the jagged edge of concrete and metal.  Light and sky the siren’s call to a leap of unspeakable surrender.  My beautiful daughters, my husband, the mountains and plains of my childhood in El Salvador rush forward in glorious detail.  Suspended between heaven and earth; a vacuum of sound, but one voice:  “I love you, my child.”  My heart and brain register my descent with unconsciousness—God’s mercy.

 Linda

I run in slow motion-still wearing 3-inch heels-for thirty blocks before falling to my knees.   People brush hard against me as they retreat from the stampede of swirling dust.  One man stops with a ridiculous question: “Are you okay, lady?” He guides me to a threshold where we lean against hard, cold marble until the choking cloud engulfs us.  The stranger and I cling to each other like ghostly lovers.

R.I.P.

I’ve been thinking for weeks about 9/11.  Like most Americans, memories of that day invoke deep emotions.   I wrote a short, short piece based on accounts of that dreadful morning.

Ruby

At the 34^th floor, firefighters with set eyes carry axes and oxygen tanks up the stairwell.  “Keep moving ma’am,” one of them says as I inch downward.   Carl has said the opposite. “We’re all clear to return to the office,” he nods and my coworkers retrace their steps to the door marked 76^.   The instinct that drives me onto the crowded sidewalk, makes me look back at this cathedral to commerce.  I weep as flames lick at its glass frame and it belches gigantic plumes of smoke, ragged pieces of paper and human souls from its gaping heart.