The sky that day was blue, so extreme in its clarity that it has a technical term: “severe clear.” A rhyme for unlimited visibility—everything crystal blue clear, in every direction.
This is what the survivors say. The sky was so blue. It was so beautiful.
New York is perfect in September, the trees still with their leaves and the sunlight thin yellow, the air no longer heavy with the hot garbage smell of the summer. And the beauty of that day was remarkable. A perfect day, a perfect so perfect it hurt.
My 9/11 story is so boring. I slept through it. I was high school age but not in high school, working at a chain bookstore. On 9/12/01, people lined up outside the bookstore before we opened. The newspapers sold out immediately. I should have bought one but I didn’t. The late edition of the New York Times from 9/11/01 is currently for sale on eBay, $1,999.99 or best offer.
My drummer ex-boyfriend’s story is better. He had just started college, newly arrived in the big city from a small town. Classes were canceled for weeks. He wandered the city aimlessly, feeling lonely and alone, drinking and smoking on strangers’ rooftops, staring at the newly crafted skyline. A few days later, he had his first and only gay sexual encounter, with a model on one of those rooftops.
On 8/15/22, I watch footage of the old film, now remastered in crisp digital. When the planes hit, some of the people scream HOLY SHIT. Some of the people scream OH MY GOD. Some of the people just scream.
As a species, these are the default responses to something that is difficult to comprehend as anything other than terrible. We are programmed machines with three buttons. Six, if you count HOLY FUCKING SHIT, OH MY LORD, and OH MY FUCKING GOD as separate options.
In the video, I watch the people wearing their private faces—faces normally hidden in bedrooms, restrooms, cubicles, apartments, tucked into chests. Now the private faces are public, looking up, up, up at the sky. Shock and awe and horror and sadness. Disbelief. The private faces, now historical record, shown and reshown to millions of people across the country, across the world. To be shown to me, twenty years in the future. I rewind ten seconds. Is that man crying. I rewind ten seconds. Both men are crying.
George W. Bush is sitting in an elementary school, a class of cute kids in cute uniforms sitting in front of him. George W. Bush is listening to one of the children read a story called The Pet Goat. There is a sign behind George W. Bush’s head that says Reading Makes a Country Great. George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff comes up and whispers in his ear. George W. Bush looks around stupidly. He purses his lips. George W. Bush did just about everything wrong but I do agree with his decision to wait for the story to end.
If you learn enough about 9/11, you will notice that just about everybody who was there that day was named Mark. The man trapped under the rubble, his name is Mark. The police officer is named Mark. The ambulance driver. Both the lawyer and the newspaper reporter who were staying at the Marriott are named Mark. George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff? Mark.
In a video, a man is talking on the phone, walking the streets shortly after the north tower was hit:*Strong New York accent*:“Yeah, somebody crashed a fuckin’ airplane into the fuckin’ building. Yeah, I’m OK. I’m with Mark. Yeah, OK, I love you too. Bye.”*Same man, yelling now*:“Mark, over here. Mark, where are you going? Mark, we gotta get outta here. Mark, we’re gonna get killed. MARK! MARK! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”
Coincidentally, four of the men who were responsible for overpowering the hijackers on Flight 93, causing it to crash into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, instead of the U.S. Capitol, were named Mark.
Biblical scholars believe that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest gospel, written around AD 70. More than any other gospel, the Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus as a magician.
If you want to be an acclaimed literary novelist, you must, at some point, write a 9/11 novel, or, at least, insert it into one of your books. If you don’t know where to put it, just put it at the end.
In 2018, I am in a small town in Virginia, population 300, on vacation. My husband and I walk to the historic courthouse. We look at the old brick steps. Off to the side, there is an evergreen tree with a marble plaque below it. It bears 2 (two) American flags and these words in all caps: DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN VICTIMS VOLUNTEERS AND SURVIVORS OF SEPTEMBER 11 2001.
It feels so oddly specific, here, in rural Virginia.
We keep walking. There are more evergreen trees and more marble plaques with American flags on them. Each is dedicated to a different group of people:
DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN VICTIMS VOLUNTEERS AND SURVIVORS OF PEARL HARBOR
DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN VICTIMS VOLUNTEERS AND SURVIVORS OF THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FIRE
DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN VICTIMS VOLUNTEERS AND SURVIVORS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE OF 1906
DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN VICTIMS VOLUNTEERS AND SURVIVORS OF THE BUFFALO SUPERMARKET SHOOTING
DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN VICTIMS VOLUNTEERS AND SURVIVORS OF THE AIDS CRISIS
Never forget!
In 2025, I am living in a small town in West Virginia, population 16,000. I receive a postcard in the mail advertising a Christian rally that will be at the convention center down the street. It shows a picture of the New York skyline with two heavenly rays of light shining from the memorial. Except the skyline is wrong. The Empire State Building is right next to the memorial and the Chrysler Building is missing. The postcard says GOD BLESS AMERICA and 9/11 WE REMEMBER.
I go online and look at the schedule but the details are vague and it seems like it isn’t really meant for remembering 9/11 so I don’t go.
The next month, they have a rally to remember the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and I go to that one and get saved.
But I’m lying. I do, in fact, know the difference between 9/11 and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. It’s optics. There’s a reason why people care more about the World Trade Center deaths than those at the Pentagon. It’s a lot more fun to watch a skyscraper burn than an office park.
I go to the Walmart in my small town in West Virginia. I see a minivan with a license plate that has a picture of the World Trade Center on it. It says 911 NEVER FORGET.
I buy a shirt on eBay that has a photo of Osama bin Laden on it and a photo of George W. Bush and a photo of an American flag. I wear it to bed.
In 2015, I’m in Brooklyn, reading poems to an audience, at a building with a view of the new memorial. I read the poem about dressing up as a sexy terrorist for a costume party: fake dynamite, silver bikini, Sharpie on my arms saying I LOVE AL QAEDA. Nobody at the reading is offended.
The photo from the hotel chain where they tell you they are commemorating 9/11 by offering free mini muffins for half an hour in the lobby.
On the eleventh anniversary, I post a meme to my Facebook page. It is a fake Subway sandwich ad with a man holding his arms like he is an airplane, pretending to crash into two sandwiches. TWO SUBS $9.11 YOU’LL “NEVER FORGET” THIS DEAL, it reads.
A good friend of a good friend gets mad. He is a vet. He yells at me, via Facebook comments, flame-war style. 9/11 IS NOT SOMETHING TO JOKE ABOUT PEOPLE LITERALLY GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THIS.
A year later, the vet messages me. He wants to talk. We are both in a twelve-step program and he wants to make amends. I tell him this isn’t necessary but eventually I agree to meet him for coffee anyway. It is fun. I enjoy the attention and care it takes for somebody to apologize to you for something they did in the past. That is one of the most loving and least pleasant things the twelve-step program makes you do: confront your past, not just on your own, but with the people with whom you lived it. You look at what you did wrong and you apologize. There is also something called “a living amends,” where you actively decide to quit being shitty to someone you were especially shitty to. My living amends are to my mother and father.
Is that wrong? Should I have volunteered to make amends to him instead?
With 9/11, who owes whom the amends?
LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR
—“Bodies,” Drowning Pool (nu metal band), May 2001
According to the Wikipedia page for Drowning Pool’s song “Bodies”: “During 2001, the song became popular, but the song was taken off radio stations after the September 11 attacks because it was considered inappropriate in the wake of the terrorist attacks. An early version of ‘Bodies’ appeared on their EP Pieces of Nothing (2000), . . . featuring a significantly greater amount of screaming.”
If 9/11 was one of your family members, it would be your sloppy uncle at Thanksgiving, when he gets too drunk and sentimental and starts flinging his arms, accusing people of slighting him, and then he tries to start a fistfight but accidentally starts crying instead.
If 9/11 was a sandwich, it would be a McRib.
If 9/11 was a natural disaster, it would be a forest fire.
If 9/11 was a small household appliance, it would be an air fryer.
If 9/11 was a zodiac sign, it would be a Leo.
If 9/11 was a dog, it would be a golden retriever.
If 9/11 was a health insurance company, it would be COBRA.
If 9/11 was a country, it would be America.
The most American part of America, 9/11, our jingoism and bravery and our tacky pride. Our big, shiny buildings and our loud bombs and our prayers. Our tragedy.
A man, calmly eating a sandwich downtown, the north tower burning in the background. The second plane hits. The man recoils in horror, runs away. What happened to the sandwich?
I talk about 9/11 so often that my husband says I must call it something else. He can no longer tolerate me saying the phrase “nine eleven.” His preference is that I stop mentioning it, period, but if I can’t do that, I should refer to it as “the tragedy” instead.
When I ask him to read this story, he says it is good but there are too many “9/11s.” I should cut some. I listen to him and cut nine of them, but then add 1 (one) more.
A man in Miami owned a taipan snake (super venomous) as a pet. Bad idea! The snake bit him on 9/11/01. Hospitals don’t carry non-regional anti-venom. It has to be flown in. But on that day, all the planes were grounded. Bad luck! He started bleeding out of his eyes and mouth. Finally they made an exception for him, flew in a plane with the anti-venom from a special facility in San Diego, escorted by two fighter jets. Imagine the medical bill! He lived.
The same day, a famous American herpetologist was conducting research in Myanmar. He got bit by a snake. There were communication problems with the embassy and the weather was bad and he didn’t get the anti-venom in time. He died.
The jet fuel ignited as it spilled down the elevator shafts, blowing out the whole lobby and the only intact stairwell.
There were women’s shoes everywhere, at Ground Zero and the Pentagon. All the living ladies and all the dead ladies, bodies blown out of dress shoes.
Hi. I’m on the 100th floor of the World Trade Center with thirty people. It’s hard to talk. There’s a lot of smoke. We’re all overreacting. Please come right now. Okay, bye.
The priest at Ground Zero saw an ambulance so he went to give the people inside it their last rites. But there were no dying people in the ambulance. Instead, it was filled with dogs, dogs wearing oxygen masks, dogs struggling to breathe, dogs dying. They died from sniffing in the rubble.
The woman who worked in the morgue waited for the bodies to arrive, but no bodies came. It was pieces of bodies that showed up instead. A body bag, an arm. A body bag, a chunk of a torso. A body bag, a thigh.
She says the ones still wearing clothes were most useful because sometimes there were things in their pockets. Coins, slips of paper, items more identifiable than limbs and organs. Our selfhood is not contained in our flesh, but in our trash. The body bags were so light and easy to carry, like those of a baby.
The people who worked in the hospitals waited for the injured people to arrive, for the chaos, but no people came. The hospital was peaceful. There were no patients because the people were all dead.
Things that fuse together in extreme heat: contact lenses to eyeballs, fabric to flesh.
Things that tear apart in extreme heat: fire-retardant coating, steel.
As the World Trade Center burned, a fireman had to leave to change his uniform. He was standing too close to one of the falling bodies and got a chunk of human remains stuck to his pants.
The line cook’s shift begins at 8 a.m. First thing, prepping the walk-in cooler. Walk-in coolers have a thick seal and thick walls, rendering them soundproof. The line cook is in the cooler for about fifteen minutes. When he comes back outside, nobody is around. They’ve disappeared. A customer walks into the kitchen. “You can’t be in here,” the line cook tells him.
It is then that he notices a crazed look in the customer’s eye. A streak of fear shoots through him.
The customer says, “No, but COME AND SEE.”
The line cook tries to leave the kitchen with the customer, but something is blocking the door. Some kind of dead animal. The line cook is confused. What is a dead animal doing here, in this restaurant, in the kitchen? But then he notices it is not a dead animal. It is a dismembered arm.
He tries to go back to safety, back to the walk-in cooler.
But again, the customer says, “No, but COME AND SEE.”
Twenty years in the future, the line cook tells the documentary camera: “AND I SAW.”
He beheld the courtyard.
In it there are hundreds of bodies, but just the parts. Dismembered arms and legs and heads. And right then, a body comes and falls in front of him, hitting the ground, BOOM. It explodes into pieces.
But I love the businessman who saved the burning woman and the off-duty priests and nurses and Port Authority employees who fled their homes to help and I love the group of men who carried their friend who had no legs to safety. I love the crew of firefighters who saved Josephine Harris, a woman who could barely walk due to a recent car accident. And I love that in the end, it was she who saved them: if they weren’t slowed by saving her, they would have been elsewhere in the building and it would have collapsed on them and they would be dead. I love the people rescuing the crowds with their boats, I love the firefighters, I love the police officers, I love the everyday small acts of kindness, the woman who shared her asthma inhaler and the woman who got the man a bottle of water and the bodegas giving out free sandwiches and the man who literally gave a woman the shirt off his back. I love the EMT partners, separated by chaos, only to find each other and reunite in the rubble. I love the stories of people praying together. I love the two men who saved each other, agreeing to be brothers for life, rubbing their bloody palms together in oath. Each and every one of them small, living angels, carrying out a moment of grace. Come and see this too.
Found at the crash site of United Flight 93: a snake, coiled up, ready to strike, preserved in ash like Pompeii; an entire face, separated from the skull, most likely belonging to one of the hijackers; a chunk of skin bearing a Superman tattoo, from the body of Louis “Joey” Nacke II, most likely one of the passengers who wrestled control of the airplane from the hijackers; a Bible, nearly pristine, its still-white pages fluttering in the wind, before falling open to Mark 9:
Their worm does not die
And the fire is not quenched.
Their worm does not die
And the fire is not quenched.
Their worm does not die
And the fire is not quenched.
Juliet Escoria is the author of the story collection You Are the Snake (forthcoming from Soft Skull in 2024) and the novel Juliet the Maniac (Melville House, 2019). Her first two books, Black Cloud and Witch Hunt, will be issued in a new volume by CLASH Books in the fall of 2023. She was born in Australia, raised in San Diego, and currently lives in West Virginia.
Illustration: Mickey Miles
