I woke up in a deep sweat, my heart was racing, and I was having trouble breathing. It had
already been a month, and I was still having flashbacks of hearing her screams, the screams of
thousands of innocent people. But I couldn’t help it, I had chronic sleep insomnia, and when I finally
went to sleep I woke up to screams. So, instead of closing my eyes and trying to get a few more hours of
sleep, I got up, went over to her chair, and just remembered. I remember remonstrating with myself,
pleading, begging, sobbing, and praying that through all the chaos going on the city that day that I
couldn’t find her, but that she was ok. I remember when I first met her: I was 21 years old, I was on
leave from the marines, and she was sitting at the train station waiting for train number 33. I knew that
the train was heading towards Brooklyn and I was suddenly mad that I needed to go to Tribeca. Her
long, curly, beautiful red hair was flowing, like a fish that has the entire ocean to itself. That night I went
to my house and sketched a picture of the face that I later began to venerate. The next day, I went back
to the same train station, the same spot, and there she was, in the exact position, in the exact spot that
she was the previous day.
“I’m Mac” I said quietly and quickly.
She didn’t respond, I figured she wasn’t interested but didn’t want to offend me to my face.
“I’m Claire, you in the army or something” she said after a few minutes of silence. She said it with such
interest; I thought for a second that she was actually wondering.
“No, the marines, I’m on leave and I came to see my father in Chicago.” I said not as fast, to assure that
she understood me.
“Oh, what are you doing in New York?” she said, as she saw the train approach at a, what seemed like, a
rapid speed.
“I have never been to the city before and wanted to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.” I said
shortly after. She spent the next few minutes trying to dissuade me not to go and see the ball drop.
“It’s always really cold, it is almost always snowing, it is packed, and you can barley see the ball, just
watch it on TV, you will get a much better view” she said very quickly, as if she had known everything
about New York.
Eventually, after missing two trains and talking for nearly an hour, she had to leave.
I quickly yelled “wait, what’s your last name?”
Either she didn’t hear me or didn’t want me to know what her last name was, but at that second I saw
her look back with a smile, and I assumed she didn’t hear me.
As she walked on the train, and I watched the train vanish into the emptiness of Pennsylvania Station, I
realized that she execrated me and my desire to see her only augmented.
After I was completely awake, I went down to hail a cab, went to the lab, and went to my office. My
