The heater I kneeled on warmed my sopping legs. I pressed my nose against the cold glass window, spattered with raindrops, little crystals.
I stared out over the city. Towers everywhere, crowding around me. Many people have seen them, but I was looking at them from 350 feet in the air. A gap in the pavement below stared up at me. That was where the Twin Towers had been.
My brother works here as a technical engineer. “See below you, how there’s a concrete base around where the Twin Towers were? Now see the Hudson, way up there? What do you think is higher, the concrete barrier or the Hudson?”
“The Hudson,” by mother and I answered in unison, seeing from mere perspective that the Hudson was flowing around the concrete barrier.
My brother droned some technical explanation. “Now although there wasn’t any visible flooding after 9/11, they built a second layer of a concrete barrier to be the base of the new towers they’re constructing, just in case.
“Oh, and you see that Burger King down there? They stored some of the bodies from 9/11 in the refridgerators. I never get lunch there. It’s haunted.”
My blood ran cold. Then it dawned on me. I shivered. Alex kept saying things about the reconstruction of the buildings. “Alex, were people in here when the plane crashed?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Do you know any of them?”
“Yeah. They don’t really like to talk about.” His voice was low. I held my breath as a plane soared overhead. Oh, I realized, we’re in New York City. There are plane stations. It’s all right.

It was there, sitting on the heater, that I first realized the full impact of September 11, 2001. How the people my brother works with go on, day in and day out, after witnessing such a tragedy, is to this day beyond me.
With the fear that came while seeing the wreckage comes now understanding, an understanding of the devastation of 9/11. My heart goes out to those lost on that day, especially since I stood so close to the place where they were lost.