This week's [Fiction] Friday topic: The conversation took off when Louise mentioned Bruce Willis.
Where is Bruce Willis when you Need Him?
2001
When I got to the office this morning, I put my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the refrigerator and filled my "Life's a Beach" mug (complete with a palm tree handle) with steaming hot decaf. It was just a typical day at work. The other accounting reps slowly made their way to their desks on this average Tuesday, talking about the pot roast they made last night and discussing the movie they recently watched. Louise had finally seen "Unbreakable."
"It's about time," I piped in. "Wasn't it so intense?"
"I didn't like it as much as "The Sixth Sense," but that Bruce Willis is really something.
Soon Dixie, Laura and the new girl (I think her name was Chelsea) were chatting incessantly about Bruce Willis and every movie and television appearance he has ever made.
"I love when he was on "Friends" and was like totally macking on Rachel. Can I just say yum?" Chelsea, or maybe it was Kelsey, talked through the huge wad of gum in her mouth.
"I liked him best in "Armageddon." I wanted to marry him after seeing that movie. I must have seen it 30 times in one year," Dixie said in her high pitched nasal screech.
"Girls! Two words for you. "Pulp Fiction." I just want to ride on the back of that chopper with him," Laura chimed in.
I was about to tell them that we had a huge deadline that wasn't going to wait for Bruce Willis to somehow convince our boss that we should move it back a week when I felt the thud.
"What was that?"
"I smell smoke."
Alarms started going off in the building. Having worked in the World Trade Center for the last fifteen years, I thought nothing could ever happen to such a grand building. Then I heard people telling us to evacuate down the stairs. That our tower had been hit by a plane and was starting to crumble from the top down.
"Ladies! We have to go. Now! Don't worry about your purses! Bruce Willis isn't going to save us this time." I shouted as I lunged for the door to the stairs and followed the immense crowd of panic stricken workers from floors further up than mine. I didn't look back. I couldn't see much behind me anyway. So many people were cramming into the stairwell.
"Who could do such a thing?"
"Maybe it was an accident?"
"This doesn't feel like an accident."
We gradually made it out of the building and into the fresh air, only to see the second tower get hit by another plane. Shrieks filled the streets of the city as everyone made their way as far from the towers as possible. Smoke and soot were starting to gather from the site of the disaster. We had to keep moving forward. I glanced back again for Louise, Laura, Dixie and Chelsea (Kelsey) but didn't have much luck spotting them. I figured I'd call them on their cells tonight, if they didn't try to reach me first. I first had to worry about finding my husband and picking up Lottie from day care, where I dropped her off only a few hours ago. I punched my husband's number into my cell, but only received a busy tone.
"Move!" I felt a shove from behind.
"Okay, okay..." I grumbled, making my way to Sunshine and Smiles, where I gathered my sticky toddler in my arms and held on to her for dear life.
2010
"Mom, are you okay?"
Carlotta was waving her hand in front of my face. Who knows how long I had zoned out this time?
Shaken, I replied "Yes, sweetie. I didn't get much sleep last night, thanks to you and your "Glee" marathon.
"I need your help with my social studies paper. So are you going to tell me where you were when the twin towers were hit by a plane on September 11th?"
"Nowhere that Bruce Willis could easily find me, that's for sure."
"Huh?" Carlotta looked as puzzled as she did the day I took her out of her favorite day care for the last time before relocating ourselves to Connecticut.
"Never mind. Do you have a pencil and paper ready? This is going to be a long story. Maybe your dad can tell his side too. He saw it all happen. I felt it though." I took a long sip of my decaf and prepared myself to tell Carlotta how the last normal event of that day was listening to my coworkers gushing about Bruce Willis.
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9 comments:
Wow. I just love your treatment of such serious subject matter. The bit at the end with the daughter is perfect. The story flowed well with natural dialog, turning from nonchalant to extremely serious, and then finally to reflection.
What a great twist to the story -- I don't think any of us will forget where we were and what we were doing on 9/11. Great take on the prompt.
Way to entangle the mundane with the tragic. You got me thinking about all those hundreds of basic, day to day conversations that must have been playing out just before the planes hit. Seriously excellent.
I was totally taken by surprise by the way the story developed - nice twist. Connecting Bruce with the Towers was a very good idea. The phrase "the last normal event of that day" was really powerful for me.
The trivial and mundane juxtaposed to the horror of that day is a remarkable idea. So well told and the conversation with her daughter is very touching.
Adam B @revhappiness
Wow, I didn't see that coming. It's so realistic, there will be so many kids around now asking their parents where they were that day. Like someone else said, I bet EVERYONE remembers - I know I sure do!
I admit when I read the paragraph revealing to the reader we were in the World Trade Center I was thinking:
"Ugh, here we go. The WTC scenario." So thank you for the pleasant surprise of a fresh take on the event. You did a fine job. I enjoyed it.
I found the tense a little tricky at the start, seemed to be more in the present than the past, but that resolved really quickly and I like where you took us.
This one brings up a lot of issues. It hit home coming to realize that some of today's youth know nothing about what happened that day. I'll never forget where I was or what I was doing, that's for sure.
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