As I have done in the past, I am going to post a piece of work that I wrote for a class. In our Advanced Composition class we have constantly been working on “voice”, which it seems the class has tragically failed to accomplish. But the point of “voice” is to write a piece that allows your audience to feel the tone of voice that you are trying to convey….such as if you were to write from a tragic, melancholic, or reflective point of view, which is what I tried to accomplish in the following piece. The assignment included writing a historical account and I appropriately chose to write on 9/11. What I have written is also based on a true story. My dear friend Lucy did almost lose her life that tragic day.
The day started off as a beautiful and warm one. The children were back at school, the thoughts of summer dying down were starting to emerge, and the city was alive with people rushing back and forth to get to work on time or with tourists who wanted to enjoy the magnificent day. Lucy arrived to work as usual around eight o’clock and she followed her morning routine of taking the elevator up to the floor where she had been working on for a few years. Nothing seemed suspicious or different; it seemed like one of those ordinary September days that remain familiar in our minds. Lucy’s life however, changed the instant she decided to leave the building for a cup of coffee. She simply walked out with her wallet in hand, leaving behind her purse with all her documents, hoping she could grab something quick and make it back into the building before her short break was over.
It was as she was leaving the building that she heard a plane flying up above. When she looked up she realized that it was too close to everything around her, but before she could even process the current happenings, it crashed into one of the Twin Towers. From this moment on, everything remained in slow motion! Running towards the nearest ferry boat, all Lucy could think about was how she was going to contact her husband without her cell phone. Every so often she would look around and take in all the chaos surrounding her. Here she was, a thirty year old female running through New York City with her shoes and wallet in her hands trying to push and shove her way to the nearest Ferry along with hundreds, even thousands of other people.
Since everything literally went to a standstill after both Towers were hit and after both collapsed, the Ferry boats operated very slowly, especially since they tried packing as many people as possible into them. Lucy could only think about the massive destruction that was occurring. A sudden sadness, shock, and melancholy ran over her as the Ferry she finally got on, after hours of waiting, backed away from the dock. All she could see was the enormous cloud of smoke that hid what used to be beautiful Manhattan and the numerous amounts of injured people who cried out for help or for their loved ones. Her first instinct was to reach out to her husband; however there was no way of contacting him. Little did she know that he was attempting to get his way into the city just to go looking for her. Luckily, his attempts were effortless since security was not allowing anyone back into the city and after hours of anguish and constant worrying, they were both reunited at Liberty
State Park.
However, it is that day and that moment that the first tower was hit that will always remain a part of Lucy. It has been integrated into her soul and into her heart. She will never forget the screams, the crying faces, the worried family members, the broken hearts, and the collapsed city. Although it seems as though New York City and Manhattan has gotten back to normal, it is people like Lucy that constitute the majority of the individuals that still understand how that day in history has affected and will continue to affect millions.
