One woman's snapshot

I have often heard avid readers claim that films based on books never truly capture the words as the reader first experienced them. And so it was for me on 9/11. With limited access to television, I listened to NPR while driving on an empty highway as the day's events unfolded.

It is amazing how even more hideous the witness' cries were to hear than to see the planes slicing into both towers. I covered my mouth while listening to an on-site doctor tell of crouching under a car as dust consumed his oxygen; on television, the story was reduced to gray smoke. As sirens whined and multiple voices shouted conflicting orders, I could feel the chaos. Rumors of bound flight attendants still strapped in their seats were more horrific delivered by voice than by an update ticker on the bottom of the television screen.

Sometimes I wish now I had first watched everything on television. The painful imagery still seems more salient because I listened to it happening.