Tuesday {The Manhattan Trilogy #1}

Waking Up (NT)

I wake up slowly to an alarm beeping an annoying sound repeatedly in my ear. Quickly, I slam my hand down on the off button to shut the sound up. There's really no point in waking up the rest of the Manhattan apartment building at 5:30 in the morning. It would be quite rude for me to do that, although most people wake up around this time anyway to go to work.

"Hey, you! Alarm dude!" The sudden shout startles me for only a second before I recognize whose lips it is coming from.

My identical twin sister rolls over in the bed next to me and sits up. Her short silver hair is knotted everywhere and definitely requires a brushing. She stares at the alarm angrily with narrowed eyes. It does not stare back since it is not a living thing.

"Shut the hell up before I break you into pieces!" She curses at it. Then she turns to me, crossing her long, thin legs.

"Why are we waking up so early in the morning, North Tower?" She inquires. "We're only in sixth grade, not high school. Why was the alarm set for 5:30 instead of 6, as it usually is? I would enjoy an extra half hour of sleep."

"Well, South Tower," I answer her question. "Sometimes we take too long to get ready, and then we are late for school. Now that we have graduated from the elementary school to the middle school, I want to break that habit. The Twin Towers are respectable young buildings, not students that get tardy slips and then detentions!"

Don't be surprised by that last sentence. I'm the soul of the North Tower, also known as One World Trade Center. I was born in the year 1990, almost twenty years after my completion as a building, which makes me what you would call a millennial. My building self is made of approximately 500,000 kilograms of steel, and it is 110 stories tall. It also has a spire, black and white, protruding from the top of it, which is thankfully absent from my human soul. How else would I wear my helmet to protect against concussions while on the ice?

My sister is almost exactly the same as me. Both of us were born on May 2, 1990. I'm the human soul of One WTC, and she's Two WTC. Her name is South Tower, and to be honest, she's the best sister a building could pray for. We barely ever fight, and we enjoy the same things. As far as looks go, both of us have silver skin, hair, and eyes. We're identical in every way, except for when we play ice hockey. I score goals as a center, while she makes saves between the pipes as a goaltender. That is the only possible way people are able to tell us apart.

I guess that's why they call us the Twin Towers.

South Tower groans and complains about getting up early, rising from her bed and groggily ambling over to the window. She stares out at our bland but still fantastic building selves, who stand over one thousand feet tall just a few streets away from our apartment.

While she's doing that, I gather enough energy to pull myself from the endless comfort of my sheets and pillows. I choose our matching clothes for the day: Tiny, sparkling silver earrings, gray business shirts and pencil skirts, and black flats. The perfect choice for two mature girls who also happen to be the human souls of two office buildings.

"I wonder what the world will be like ten years from now," I mumble absentmindedly to my sister. "Ten years from 2001 is 2011. Imagine the world on September 11, 2011, South Tower. I bet it's pretty freaky."

"Stop making me think so early in the morning," my twin moans. "We only got six hours of sleep. Why'd you and Dad have to stay up watching Monday night football?"

"At least they're letting us skip lunch break," I laugh in response. "We could get a sandwich at a café and hang around our building selves while also getting some nice summer sun."

After I drop the day's clothes off in our shared bathroom, I saunter over to our daily wall calendar of the year 2001. Every day, either my sister or I rip the current date off to reveal the next. We alternate, so every other day, the same twin will read the date out loud to the other.

I do it this time, knowing that the date currently displayed on the calendar is incorrect. Clearly it is not the tenth of September anymore.

"Today is..." I say loudly.

Rrrrip!

"Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Good morning, New York City. Good morning, borough of Manhattan. Good morning, South Tower. Surely today will be a wonderful day that all will enjoy."