<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)"><style></style></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><o:p> </o:p>Has it been ten years since the terrible attack on 9/11? I still find it hard to believe. I think many people do. I still cannot understand why people commit such evil upon each other. I think I never will. I have many memories of that day. I remember staring in disbelief at the tv screen. I remember standing on my front lawn and clearly seeing the smoke from the fires. I remember all my friends frantically online trying to contact me to be sure I was still alive. One still sticks in my mind 'Is he still alive?" I remember the large funerals at the cemetery not 3 miles from where I sit and write this now. There were a lot of funerals that fall, many with an empty casket. I think of that day and an anger still fills me a decade late r. I wrote the following short piece while struggling to come to terms with 9/11. It was written in a burst of inspiration, anger and pain<o:p></o:p>    In memory of all those who went out and will never be coming back.    Christian Okane<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p><o:p> </o:p><o:p> </o:p><o:p> </o:p><o:p> </o:p><pre>   12 September 2001<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>                          That terrible silence<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>                        ---------------------------<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>  It's a simple structure that stands across the street from my apartment. Two stories tall and made of deep, red brick and gray stone. Two wide roll up garage doors stood below a sign that proudly read "RESCUE."<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre> Two engines had called that place home, polished and cleaned by proud firemen. I can still picture their faces now, smiling, laughing, talking, cleaning or repairing something. I even watched with amusement as a television crew filmed this company of New York's bravest. These firemen were famous, they always seemed to be rescuing people from crumbling buildings, collapsed scaffolding or swimming into a sunken boat to rescue a trapped crewman. They were called the bravest of the brave.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>   I had long ago lost my amazement at what they did. All I knew was that I always seemed to be jolted awake at the most foul ho<o:p></o:p></pre><pre> urs by screaming horns and wailing sirens as red and blue lights danced across my ceiling. Driving away all hopes of sleep. Now that it's gone I miss it so.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>   Now I stand at my window looking at the people who lay flowers and wreaths where the engines once rested. Where I had stood countless times talking and chatting with the firemen. Brave souls who had gone out and will never come back.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>   Sometimes even now I wake up in the middle of the night hoping, praying to hear the wail of sirens and the scream of the horns. Instead all I hear is that silence.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>   That terrible silence.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><o:p> </o:p></div> !DSPAM:4e6d1a12281471804284693! </body></html>