Yesterday I saw things on my TV screen

by Bill Crider

 

Yesterday I saw things on my TV screen that I never thought I'd see in America. I saw a plane slicing into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I saw terrified people leaping from the upper floors of that same tower. (I cannot begin to imagine the terror that was behind them to make them choose to jump.) I saw the towers crumble into dust. I felt hollow inside, as if someone had opened my chest and emptied me out.

Today I heard, and I pray it's true, that a mother received a cell phone call from her son, who was aboard the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. She said he told her that the people on the plane knew they were going to die, but they weren't going to be the cause of other deaths. They were going to take back the plane or die trying. I hope it's true because I want to believe in heroes, in people who put the lives of others above their own and who act on their convictions. It's one of the things that's great about America, and it fills the emptiness inside of me with hope.

 

*Bill Crider. His body of work stretches from Mystery and Western to Horror and Science Fiction. From adult mystery to children's fiction. He won the Anthony Award for "Best First Mystery Novel" in 1986 for TOO LATE TO DIE and in 1989 he co-authored the novel MURDER UNDER BLUE SKIES with NBC's The Today Show's weatherman Willard Scott.