Picture this. A 17 year old guy. Normal height, skinny, brown hair. Nothing to expect right? Think again. A sad and unique story. This is the story of Ben. Now, if walking down a city street and seeing Ben you wouldn’t look twice. His day to day outfit, an old plain white T-shirt with a leather jacket, skinny jeans, and black converse. His jaw thin and chiseled, nose pointed and slightly rounded at the end, eyes big and hazel with slight dark circles underneath. Ben has pale skin with blemishes around the lining of his jaw. But his hair, oh, his hair, Ben’s hair looks like something straight out of a cliché 1950s movie, but how flawless it always was. Dark sunglasses, earphones in Ben would walk down the same street he had been for 3 years, heading to the same job at the same diner day after day. His routine had become as natural as inhaling the smoggy air of New York, New York.

No Ben isn’t liked very much, why? Maybe it’s because he wears nothing but that leather jacket and a few old torn Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, and Guns N’ Roses shirts. Maybe it’s the fact he takes a few too many smoke breaks because of his diagnosed depression. Or maybe it’s the fact that Ben just isn’t the sociable type. Ben wasn’t always like this. He was happier more lively once. All before that cataclysmic day. The one person Ben could always have dependence on was his father. His father used to work in the World Trade Center. Then the day of September 11, 2001 started out as a normal day for Ben. He went to work (which he didn’t mind as much back then) and his dad went off to work. Little did Ben know that was the last time he was going to ever hear his father’s voice again.

Ben was sponging off a crumby table when the emergency report began to unfold on the TV screen. 8:46 am an airline of 92 passengers battered into the South tower leaving helpless citizens stunned in their tracks. Worried Ben was mesmerized at the screen thoughts and questions of his father were jumbling through his head. Unconsciously he felt his legs take him outside still in a whirlwind of thoughts. He looked through the maze of buildings until he saw the smoke and the fire. After that sight Ben fell to his knees, the fire was coming from the same section of building that his father worked in. Ben stayed there as the rest of the diner shuffled outside also stunned. The rest of the day unraveled in total almost 3000 people died and still no word on Ben’s father. Ben that night just sat by his bedroom window reminding himself that his father won’t be there in the morning to wake him up. What makes Bens story unique is how his father died. It was one of the stories in the next day’s New York Times. His father held hands with a woman he had never met as they jumped to their doom off the South building. Ben collapsed as he read the news. Pulse accelerating, blood boiling, veins protruding. Enraged he hurled the newspapers to the ground, he violently shook the dispenser, kicked a lone parking meter, repeatedly punched a wall till he tore through the skin and his knuckles bled, cursing at the wind. “why did you take him away from me!?” Screaming and crying till he couldn’t any more. He ran as fast as his lanky legs could take him he went home where he looked in the mirror at his bloodshot eyes. Events played through his thoughts what would happen now, who did he have to look up to? Ben solemnly slinked over to his mattress and slept; he slept and slept for the whole month of September. On October 1st at midnight exactly he woke up, walked over to his window like it was rehearsed and lit his first cigarette.