Consequences

Is this what we're looking forward to?

Usual busy. People buzzing up and down the long walkway between train rails. I had to catch the second get-me-sorta-on-time-at-work train because of course my daughter had to take me to the station today. Not like I want to be here, taking the hundreds of trains and steps that spit me out somewhere near Madison Ave. Oh, God please keep me safe..Osama bin Laden was killed last night and I just found out this morning. My girls were up and heard about it when it actually happened--news to me!
I quickly buy my ticket and stand at my usual spot far up the walkway.
Good. I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad the US has gotten some sort of payback for what they did. I worked on the 72nd floor of the 2nd tower. Thank God I made it, and my friends as well--most of them. Please? For my girls...
A distant toot warns commuters of it's arrival. I get on once it stops. Find a seat and whip out my book: the latest in the J. D. Robb series.
The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful. The usual singers and hats were nowhere to be found considering it's almost 7 am.
I peel out of the final train and power walk to the exit. Eager to get into my office: an unwanted home away from home. What I really want to do is write. I've got my first book already written and awarded! All I need now is a literary agent and a publisher and voila! I can quit this and pursue my dream.
Madison Square park is dimly lit and the coffee drinkers are occupying every available bench, trying to wake up.
A violent tremble of the sidewalk has me instantly alert.
No. No! NO! I jog quickly away from the sound that accompanied the earth shaking...but where was it coming from?
The screaming starts and people rush in all directions.
NO!
My bag tightly too my chest I run. Towards the bridge and away from the heart of the city. Subways aren't safe now. Nowhere is.
This can't be happening...not again!
I run for a very long time. Something my heart shouldn't have to endure again--anymore.
The bridge is jam packed with vehicles--trucks and sports cars all way too close together. Shouts from angry drivers echo and I can hear them from where I stand. I finally stop for a moment to catch my breath and sooth my aching chest. I look back and see smoke rising from 3 separate parts of the city followed by booms and screams. A circling of US jets approaches from the right, heading towards oddly shaped planes on my right.
No! My girls, my girls! Please!
People are getting out of their cars and running with their children and belongings towards the jersey side of the bridge. Filtering through the idling motors and ignorant people. I get to the edge of the bridge and make my way to the railings of the bridge and look over the side as the steady line of people moves at a snails pace.
What if I just .... went? I wouldn't have died from terror or as revenge. Escape? Relief?

No. My babies, my girls need me. What am I thinking! I want to see my oldest graduate college and get married and be beautiful. I want to see my youngest graduate high school and follow her dreams. I want to be with my husband through all of that and celebrate with him our victorious parenthood. Our 22 years of marriage. Our grandchildren.

I need to live.

I shove the people in front of me aside, noticing the commotion. A chain of people are locked together, elbow to elbow, stopping people from making the rest of their way across the bridge.

"They can't hurt us anymore, we won guys! Where are you going?"

"Die for your country! Don't you know what that means?"

"Where the hell do you think you're going? Stand up! Stay for America!"

"Think about it...what rewards you'll get for dying for your country."

"How bout us instead of our troops, aye?"

The murderous shouts of the people trying to get through was incredible. Mothers tending to their children, telling them to run as fast as they can over the bridge. Giving them a few coins or their cell phones to call family for them to be picked up. Then they launch their children over the chain of people and onto a car in front and watch them crawl to safety--towards home.
These ignorant people are so ignorant! Let me through! I have children. Children!

A burly man screams into my face, "THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! THE REWARD!" His voice booms across the bridge and everyone turns for a moment towards him. His shpiel about how sacrifice is the best way to go. We'll thank him in the end.

Screaming screaming screaming. Shouting Punching throwing.

My heart explodes in my chest. My lungs are deprived of air. My head is spinning in thoughts of those I love.

I cry out. I use all that's left of me, my desperation, to be heard. Let it out, scream it out! My throat is raw and the crowd is significantly more quiet. They listen.

"I. Have. CHILDREN! On the other side of that bridge my future is moving. My babies are growing up and I DO NOT want them to do that without me! The children, sir? THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! Do you really think a world without parents is going to save us? Look at you terrorists out here! Within! These people bombing us shouldn't be the ones we're afraid of! It's you. You and all these ignorant b******s tearing families apart with nothing but false hopes and patriotic bullshit. LET ME THROUGH. Let me through right now or I swear to God I will have died in vain. This is nothing to be proud of. We killed a man and celebrate. We've become lax and stupid. Naive! Did you think we would win? Huh? Sir? Why aren't you talking! Where's your patriotic spirit? Where's your VOICE? I don't hear it! I don't hear a single word. LET ME THROUGH!"

The crowd of mothers joined me with their jeers and yes's waving to their children far off finishing the bridge. A close by boom jolts the bridge upwards and earns a few screams out of the crowd. The big man staggers and comes upright. Looking down on me.

"Do you have children?"
He shakes his head.
"Do you have anything of importance to you? Anything at all?"
Another shake, both his head and the ground.
"Then I don't know what you're living for buddy. Let me leave! My end is nowhere near here. I have dreams to catch! Kids to raise! Why would you take that away from me? From these Americans yearning for life! What kind of sacrifice is this! Unneeded bloodshed."
He keeps a steady stare, I would like to think he's actually thinking about my words.
My girls. I love you. I love you both so much. If I don't make it across before this bridge is destroyed, be safe. Take care of each other. And your father. Be responsible, and think of me from time to time. I'll miss you.
The dry tears on my cheeks stiffen my face. I back up away from the man and try making my way back through the crowd. Another bridge? I don't have time, as another bombing shakes the bridge.
A woman takes me by the shoulders and shakes me hard.
"Come! Please, they heard you. They heard you!"
She hugs me hard to her. Bony elbows digging into my arms.
A great wave of relief sweeps over the crowd and it moves. I pass the fools trying to continue to hold us back. The chain broken by the big man and the woman next to him. She began to sob into him and he tried to comfort her. But his eyes were ghosts in his face. Thinking about all the things he could have kept from people's lives.
Another boom and the bridge jolts to one side. I'm still running, having lost my bags before. There are children behind cars crying out of confusion. Most being picked up by their mothers or fathers searching for them. Some happy reunions are taking place as I keep running  towards the bridge's end.
I strangely fall back. The bridge is collapsing. A jet has crashed into it. Burning and heavy, right past the ghosts of the chain of people. A few children are running towards us and I stop. What kind of person would I be if I defended my own and watched others suffer? I scooped up a small girl with open arms. Another boy under a car. An older boy, maybe ten, grabbed onto one of my legs and latched on. The woman I was with was carrying 2 young girls and was yelling for a small girl far a way's back running as fast as her little legs could carry her. A business man swooped her up from behind and waved us forward. I grabbed the older boys hand and we ran. I don't know how I carried these children or how I made it across that bridge, but I made it. The edges jagged and high. I clutched the little girl in my arms as she buried her face in my neck. A few teenagers nearby were crying into their phones. A young man was carrying a baby girl and host to another girls cries.

Did I...save all of these people? No. But they're alive. Maybe because of me.
I finally let myself see what's around me. What life still surrounds all of us. A woman sprinting towards me, holding her arms out and the little boy in my arms jumps out and screams for her. It was beautiful. Really, it was. But I couldn't help but think of my own children. My girls. Who were probably both at school. Well aware of what is going on.
I leave the other kids with the kind woman who stayed with me. Told her I needed to find my way home. She nodded with understanding and thanked me once more. I pulled out my cell which miraculously survived the running and dialed my house phone.
"Mom?!"
My oldest. I could hear the tears in her voice.
"Baby I'm alive! But you need to come get me, okay? I'm not far but you'll have find me. Is your sister there?"
"She's on her way with Nana. Mom, I didn't even go to school! I had to wait for you to come home, oh, I was so afraid you weren't coming home! Ever since I dropped you off this morning. Okay I'm coming! Right now! The bridge right? okay. Bye!"

I don't think I've ever seen her run that fast. I held her like I would never see her again. The distant booms becoming more frequent and far out. I didn't care. I don't care. I have my babies and I will always be here for them.

Once I get home my other daughter comes rushing to me. We stand like that for the longest time until my mother comes in and hugs me like I do my own.

They almost lost me once, I won't let them lose me this time.

Author's Note

Something I imagined would be the rest of my mother's day. Today actually. I hope she sees nothing of this and comes back home to me safely.

Reviews

[and_if_all]

Interesting work, I'm impressed with the pace of the piece. Being in the UK its intriguing to read the different reactions to Osama Bin Ladens death.