Five years on

So it's the 5th anniversary of 9/11. At the time I was on a train from Rome to Bologna when I got a text off my sister to say that US airspace was closed but I should be okay for getting home (I was leaving on the 14th). I hadn't got a clue what she was talking about. It was only when we were reached the hostel in Bologna that we found out what happened. We then went into town and were accosted by a distraught American girl (who was quite hot) on the street asking us if we had heard what happened. One of the lads had an American Airlines tag on his bag and she had latched on to that.

It was bizarre day, the rumours of dozens of planes, the talk in the hostel that night. A strange night. And nobody knew what it all meant. I look back on it now like it was a dream.

I didn't quite grasp it though. To some degree it passed me by. Then I went to New York, saw the void of Ground Zero, and looked up at the sky scrapers and tried to imagine looking up and seeing a plane fly into one of them.

Since then I've developed an unhealthy interest in the events. I find myself online late at night watching the news coverage on You Tube, replaying the gasps and exclamations from the broadcasters as they watched the second plane hit, David Letterman's charged interview with Dan Rather a few days after the attacks. A documentary made by two French brothers who happened to be filming a fire crew at the time has become required viewing. The sound of the bodies crashing to the ground outside the Towers is one that endures.

And now I work for an American investment bank. I deal with the New York head office all day. The firm occupies one of the World Financial Centre buildings and part of another. Those buildings are part of my enduring image of 9/11. When I see the WTC site, my enduring memory is of the WFC buildings overlooking the site.

I talk to the guys in New York all day. We make jokes, we have a laugh, I'm in the NFL Fantasy League with the guys. And I try to imagine what it would have been like five years ago if I had been in the office, chatting with the guys, and then That happened.

It makes you think.