“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Coop. Just call me Coop,” she could vaguely hear him say.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Damita said.
“I’m going to be fine now. As long as you’re okay. So, go. Don’t waste another minute. Get out of here and we’ll see each other again. Don’t worry about me. I’ll meet you on the other side,” he said.
Damita left the mall at the exit near the Millennium Hotel. She stood by watching the nightmare unfold, as debris fell from the building. She began walking north and was only a few blocks away when she heard a loud noise and saw a great cloud of dust. Someone in the crowd said South Tower had fallen. The first thing Damita thought about was whether or not the man who had helped her had gotten out. Along the way, she had gotten separated from the people she had started down the stairs with on the seventy-seventh floor. She had started out along with Mr. Underhill and Wendy. Now, she didn’t see either of them. She hoped they had made it out before the building came down. Her mind wandered to the strangest things. She thought of Tina, who had been spared this ordeal, simply because she had lost her job. She also thought of all the good times she had shared with Wendy, and even her boss, Mr. Underhill. She remembered the day she came into the office to interview with him. She was fresh out of college and scared to death that she wouldn’t be good enough. Mr. Underhill’s brusque manner did nothing to reassure her. But slowly but surely, she began to prove herself and over the years, her boss, had revealed herself to be just as much of a friend. She thought of the pride she saw in her mother’s eyes when she came to see her new corner office. In the blink of an eye, all of that had changed and her life, and the lives of those she had spent so much of her time with all these years, was inexplicably altered. She had the feeling of being on autopilot. She walked, ignoring most of what was going on around her. The pain in her ankle was nonexistent. One thing she couldn’t help but notice was the massive smoke cloud rising out and above the World Trade Center site. It was all so utterly and completely surreal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
She walked past the screams of others, the bodies covered in soot and dust. Amidst the chaos she was invisible. In many ways it was as if the world had stopped. No one noticed her. She tasted smoke and dirt on her lips and filtering into her lungs but welcomed it. That at least meant she was alive. First she ran, still unsure if she was truly safe. Then, she began to walk, as the downtown street names turned into numbers. She moved forward virtually on autopilot. Not for a moment did she even notice she was walking in her stocking feet. She felt and saw nothing. Everything was arranged like tunnel vision. Every now and then someone would stop in front of her, speaking and sometimes gesturing wildly, but she still heard nothing. Once, a woman with a frightened expression stopped in front of her and grabbed her by her shoulders. The woman seemed to be screaming, but Damita heard nothing. She shook her head, hoping to jumpstart her hearing and wondered if her ears had somehow been damaged.
For a moment it seemed as though she was able to hear, but the words that did filter through were broken and the phrases unintelligible. Finally, she thought she was able to make out a full sentence.
“Are you hurt?” someone asked.
Damita kept walking. Speaking to her was a waste of time. Her thoughts were murky and her body devoid of feeling. For a moment she stopped in front of a store with a television on and watched what she could only assume was a movie. In the film thick black smoke emanated from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. She had the most overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. Her thoughts still splintered and her psyche trying desperately to cling to the notion that none of what happened to her was real, she refused to recognize what she was seeing as breaking news. At that moment, it was easier for her to believe it wasn’t real.
“Are you a survivor?”
Her eyes were vacant and lifeless. The words of others meant nothing.
Maybe I’m dead, she thought.
Suddenly, she remembered her suitcase and considered going back to retrieve it.
“It’s gone,” she said to no one in particular.
“Are you okay?” someone else asked.
“The whole building is gone. Everything is gone,” Damita said.
When she did talk the pain in her throat was excruciating. “I want my mother,” she said.
“Where do you need to go?” someone asked.
“She’s home.”
“What borough is your mother in?”
“My mother is in the Bronx,” Damita responded.
“Ma’am, I’m going to get you some help. Stay here,” she heard a voice say from the distance.