Where I was..

Data Constructs had moved into a new building a few weeks before. It was an open floor plan. From the owners desks, which were empty more than occupied, to the student who was here just temporarily, you could see everyone. In addition to the handful of employees, you could see the number of empty seats. We had not yet grown into the space. It was like they meant to create a fun open space, where you could ride a scooter between the desks, but oppressive attitude killed it. An abandoned theme park.

I had made coffee in the kitchen, at the opposite end of the building from my desk. The part of the building where the light weren't turned on because on one was there yet. It gave me a short reprieve from the JavaScript and Flash I was working on, developing a fun computer based training for a large, high end, hotel company. I was working out all the pieces so they would pass the owners identity between the pieces and them limit the permissions based on that. I liked the problem solving and I learned a lot, but I was being stretched constantly.

April, the receptionist, heard me digging for a new sleeve of filter and clipping the edge off the ground coffee, and she stepped back into the kitchen where I was. She had a strange look on her face. "Did you hear what happened?" she asked. I had been too head down, trying to catch up, to be aware of much. In the morning she answered the phone and surfed the net, so she always knew more about what was going on in the outside world than I did. "No.". "A plane crashed into the world trade center.". I was stunned. What a weird accident, I thought. "A little one?". "I don't know."

I walked a back to my desk and it seemed time had warped a little. In the time we chatted, a few people had shown up. I sat down at my desk, minimized Textpad and Flash and pulled up CNN. I drew in the heat of coffee at the same time I tried to draw in the information. I vaguely remember thinking, isn't Joe, the owner, in New York. They didn't know what plane it was, but it was a big one, a giant passenger plane.

I clicked refresh and CNN now reported a second plane. I ranged from thinking how bad the reporting was, because that couldn't happen, to thinking about the odds of two planes hitting the twin towers, thinking it must have been a rescue helicopter, to it dawning on me this was something else. Something much worse.

I looked around the room, everyone here was staring at new sites, trying to get all the details they could. I called Shelly. She didn't have more information than I did, a terrible mystery.

Either Dave or Brian ran home t get a TV and we set it up on one of the empty desks. We turned on the local channel and it was broadcasting from New York. They knew the plane that hit, but more had been hijacked. Terrorists. We stood, stunned, watching, listening, feeling like the work we were doing was so small. I tried to go back to my desk to get more done, but I couldn't focus. This wasn't something I could turn out. April came in once after the phone rang and reported that Joe wanted us to get back to work, but we looked at here with a glazed look. Work on what, materials for a hotel, while one of their major hotels was in sight of a burning national monument?

When the first tower collapsed, I packed up. I stood wanting to know what would happen to the next, watching the depressing news from the TV, but also just wanting to be home. A few minutes later, I started my short drive home. I wanted to know every detail and I wanted, even more then that, to forget.