Entry into the post-empire

September 2001.

A studious pupil with no particular physical hang-ups, I arrived in the sixth form with relative self-confidence. A few days later, in the middle of the afternoon of the 11th, I was attending one of my first English lessons when the teacher informed us of the terrorist attack on the New York business centre and various other strategic points in the United States. It was the first time I had heard of the Twin Towers, Manhattan and the Pentagon.

In the class there are two twin sisters, two half-portions; they're celebrating their birthday that day. We hardly know each other, and the event creates a strange kind of attention around them.

The first tower collapsed at around 4pm as I was walking home. The weather was fine and warm. When I arrived at the empty house, I turned on the TV and sat down behind the computer in the living room. The computer is positioned so that all I have to do is tilt my head slightly to one side to see my parents' cathode-ray tube TV, contained in a rectangular piece of furniture made of fake wood.