(I apologize in advance for the heaviness of this post.)Isn't it funny how our brains assign meanings to sounds and smells and sights, how we can condition our brains to assign these meanings, how external forces make us assign these meanings?
When we are younger, all the sounds of the world are new to us. Slowly we learn to associate noises with sources and eventually they become second nature. Oh, that soft pattering? That's just the rain. That click and subsequent rush of air? Oh, that's just the air conditioner. It must be hot in here.
Eventually these noises that may startle us the first time we hear them will drift into our subconscious and we hardly notice them when we hear them again, right? Usually.
There is one sound that will always haunt me though. The first time I remember hearing it is a day that we all remember.
In a couple of weeks, it will be the six year anniversary of the day that will forever be known as September 11th. It needs no context year. The anniversary will also be on a Tuesday, just like it was. I remember most of that morning pretty clearly. It was so beautiful outside that morning. I was in NC, but the weather was still stunning. The sky was blue and there were hardly any clouds at all, if there were any. As I walked to my 2nd block class (it was an A day, for all you South Meckers. So it was 3rd period, haha), I remember looking up at the sky and thinking to myself "gosh, it's such a beautiful day!"
Little did I know that approximately 2-4 minutes before the bell rang, an airplane had struck that first tower. I went about my day.
I don't actually know when we finally found out. Sometime after the plane hit the pentagon, that I know. My teacher's wife had called him and told him, and he told us. Both the towers had been hit, and so had the pentagon. We didn't believe him. A few people giggled nervously. "Psssh, what are you talking about, Coach Bagwell?" But his face showed no signs of of a joke. Someone got up and turned on the TV. Sure enough, it was not a sick joke. The rest of the day was filled with news and discussion, pure denial and fear.
Some of the details of my awareness are garbled, a fact I struggle with often. But one thing I do know is that I'm not sure I grasped the gravity of what had just transpired. I knew what had happened, but I wasn't sure of what I had seen.
People were dead. Thousands of them. I only vaguely remember crying. But I do remember being scared. And I remember watching hours and hours of news for the following few days. One day they aired a video that a doctor had shot. He had had to hide behind a parked car to avoid being knocked over and asphyxiated by the smoke and dust. The camera shook Blair-Witch Style, he ducked behind the car, and then the screen went black. A few seconds later it got lighter and the man stood up. Everything was gray. The car, the buildings, the people, even the air. I thought I was going to vomit. And to make things worse, I could hear that sound. That sound that has come to define fear for me. That sound that when I hear it, even now, I am immediately back 6 years watching the dazed faces stumble through the ash-filled streets.
The incessant beeping coming from the fire fighters filled my ears. Every day for hours on end. It was meant to signal "hey, I'm over here," but to me signaled "I'm nowhere to be seen," and I feared the worst. That sound, to this day, haunts me. I heard it on the news a few months ago, and I was brought back instantly. My mind was in a panic once again. Almost immediately I saw the ash and the broken windows and the personal affects. I saw the sun straining to stream down through the cloud of smoke and ash and dust. The important documents floating delicately down through the early September breeze. That video shot by the documentary team with the fire fighters. You know the one. They heard a horrible noise and looked up as an enormous passenger jet barreled into one of the buildings that once made the New York skyline so recognizable.
That one day, and all its events, have imprinted on my mind a terrible, frightful meaning for that arbitrary sound. It's just a beep after all. It means something to those of certain professions, but mean nothing to me personally. But that one day, the meaning became personal. I understood what it was. The meaning stuck in my brain and subsequently conjures up unwanted images every time I hear it.
Eventually, maybe, that sound will just be added to the list of noises I recognize without fear: the air conditioner kicking on, sirens in the distance, the crow of a rooster, a hair dryer, the whirring of a laptop fan straining to cool the hard drive. These are all things that I hear and think nothing of. Maybe one day the beeping coming from the uniforms of fire fighters, the beep that is so useful in saving their lives, will drop from my consciousness.
Maybe, but I seriously doubt it.
Only there were many, many more people, and we were organized into a line. There had to be like 1,000 people in front of me, and I got there at 4:15am! And the store opened at 5am! I still got what I wanted though.
