Bombs over Boston
Posted on Sunday, August 29th, 2004 at 21:55.
It was a moment when 9/11 didn’t seem so far away. Loud sporadic solo booms launched my eyes to the sky. All I could see were shadows of buildings on other buildings caused by quick flashes of light in the otherwise normal night sky. A chill sank inside me. Tourist trap Faneuil Hall and surrounding streets were vacant… or vacated. No… It couldn’t be.
My instinct told me to run to where I wasn’t surrounded by buildings scraping the sky, so I did. Another flash. Another single boom.
I stopped, now perched upon Government Center’s seemingly infinite stairs to survey the sky. My shallow breaths thundered along with Boston’s sudden onset of uncanny silence. The beckoning red moon glowed in fullness low on the horizon. It glowed silently. I breathed silently.
Screeches of the green line rounding the corner underground reverberated through the tiled tube of the subway station’s entrance, the doors channeling the wails behind me.
Silence.
A siren.
Sirens.
Panic?
I turned towards the T. Another boom. I turned back towards Faneuil Hall.
This boom was preceded by a single firework in the not-too-far distance. How lame! Who sets off fireworks on August 29? What fireworks display only has one rocket every minute or so? Not cool. Maybe it was a social experiment. Maybe just an odd conjunction of circumstances.
Whatever the motivation, I have never had fear rush over me to this degree since 9/11. I had forgotten that I could fear like this. Eerie.
