Tuesday {The Manhattan Trilogy #1}

...Memories (ST)

Dreaming about my birth and the 1993 truck bomb can't have been a simple coincidence! It just hit me now that these odd dreams are not any normal dreams. They're my old memories, which are being replayed inside my brain as I sleep for some unknown reason.

Soon after this realization, another memory begins to play like a movie. I'm sitting next to North Tower in our third-grade math classroom, sitting through another boring lecture about multiplication. The calendar says it's Tuesday, April 20, 1999. It's 10:14, about fifteen minutes away from the start of my next class. Right now, I am listening to my math teacher and trying to work out the numbers she throws at me.

"Now, we'll learn our 5 and 10 times tables," the teacher, a certain Mrs. Blatt, tells her class.

Before Mrs. B has a chance to write any problems for her students on the whiteboard, though, the phone on the wall interrupts her by ringing very loudly.

"Can you please answer that, South Tower?" Mrs. Blatt asks me.

"Sure," I jump out of my seat. My hair is about six inches long, cut short so it wouldn't get accidentally pulled during my peewee hockey games, and it sways behind me as I walk to the phone.

I pick up the ringing phone and answer it with a casual, "Downtown Manhattan Collective Elementary School, this is South Tower Staten from Mrs. Blatt's room. How may I help you?"

"Oh, thank God, it's one of our twins!" Mom says on the other end in an upset tone of voice. "I have very bad news about Cousin William, honey. He has been injured in a terrible event."

"Oh, that isn't good," I reply. "Please, Mom, tell me what has happened to him."

William would be my mother's older brother's son. He was born on November 16, 1983, almost seven years prior to my twin and I. On the day this memory takes place, he was a high school sophomore.

At Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

"There was a major shooting at his school, Columbine High School," Mom tells me. "Two students came in and killed fifteen or so kids. William is very lucky to be alive, but he was shot in the arm three times. They are going to amputate it."

"No!" I scream. "Anything but another school shooting! Poor young Will."

"We're going on a plane to Denver tomorrow to see Will at the hospital," Mom explains. "I'm picking you and your sister up right away from school. You will come home with me and pack your suitcases."

"Okay, I guess," I gasp. "Bye, Mom. See you soon."

I hang the phone up and start crying in front of my entire class. The room fades to black.

When it lightens again, my sister is holding my hand. We're in an extremely crowded Times Square, and the New Year's ball is about to drop. At the top of its pole is the number "1999," and at the bottom is the number "2000."

It must be December 31, 1999. North Tower and I are waiting for the beginning of the new millennium. How lucky are we to be able to see this occurrence that only happens once every thousand years! We seem to have grown a bit taller, and our hair is about two inches longer than it was in April.

"Get ready to count!" North Tower yells to me over the cheers of millions of visitors from all over the world, waiting to see the special event.

"10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Most people yell "Happy New Year," as they usually do on December 31 at Times Square, but I hear some folks say "Happy New Millennium" or "Happy 2000."

The scene fades to black again, but no new memory is displayed.

I open my eyes and realize I am awake. It is already the morning of September 12, 2001.

Quick note: William is NOT a real Columbine student, although there might have been a boy with that name. I promise that, in creating the character called Will, I intend no disrespect to those lost on that horrible spring day near Denver all the way back in 1999, twenty years ago. I also do not mean any disrespect to those injured or any families affected in any way by the tragic shooting. Never forget the 4/20/99 Columbine High School shooting.