Six years ago yesterday (or 6 years ago and 2 days before, dependent on your time zone) we were sitting pretty in our merchant bank. I still enjoyed flying. It was a lovely red-brick building, a converted factory, one my father used to work in 20 years prior to me. He worked on the shop floor before he blagged his way into management.
The first reports came out and someone ran yelling into the room; our manager let us out to go down the road and buy a radio. I still remember bickering in the shop over the model, batteries, etc. New York had seemed impenetrable until that moment; I had known that we build fragile worlds around us to protect what faced our ancestors on a daily basis, and Herodotus writes regarding the ebbs and flows of time and good fortune, but it seemed so remote. Man-made suffering attacking the 'safe' western world hadn't happened on such a scale in these times, in my world.
At the time we didn't know what would happen next - some reports said there were still planes in the air, destination unknown. It was fraught and we listened out for the radio. My last flight before 911 was to the Caribbean; afterwards, I didn't fly again until 4 years later, to Asia. I still hate flying.
Now, September the 11th is a good friend of mine's birthday. She curses the day, though