September 11th

Smoke Rising in the South: Some Memories of 9/11

Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too   Everybody remembers where they were on 9/11. I was in Manhattan, with Ciara. We were staying in Brian and Julie’s apartment on the Upper West Side. It was a stop-off on our way to Canada – a couple of weeks’ holiday in Vancouver and British Columbia. It was morning, around nine. I was having a cup of tea and reading. Ciara was having a lie-in, she was still a bit jet-lagged. The phone rang and I answered. It was Dusty O’Callaghan calling from Mallow, enquiring if Brian was okay, if he was down near the Twin Towers. ‘Brian is fine, he’s working over in Columbia,’ I said. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ Dusty told me. I put the phone down and woke Ciara. ‘Something’s happened,’ I said. ‘You have to get up.’