The vein in my father's forehead looked like it was ready to burst when I met him at the front door of our Mannhatten apartment. He grabbed my right arm and dragged me wordlessly to the kitchen.
"Do you know what time it is?" He pointed to the clock above the refrigerator.
"It's two o'clock...what about it?"
"Where have you been all this time?" His face became redder as I managed to get my right arm back. I ran out of the kitchen and made my way up the stairs, shouting, "That's none of your business."
As he followed me up the stairs, I felt a tug on my left shoulder and was turned around.
"I'm your father, you bet it's my business...what's with that smell...have you been drinking again?" His wrinkled face had gone from a tomato red to a disgusting pale.
"I only had one little tiny weenie drink. Do as I say, not as I do, right dad?" The old man's hand released my left shoulder as he turned his back to me. "You're grounded. If your mother was here, she would be ashamed." Tears started to run down his cheek as he walked down the stairs. "We will talk about this later. Right now I have to prepare a speech for a meeting at the Twin Towers."

***
A large crowd gathers around a gigantic hole where the Twin Towers once stood. "If only dad was still here," I whisper to myself. To my right, a middle-aged man holds a candle in his right hand. "My son, my poor son," he cries. To my left, a nine-year-old girl sobs in her mother's arms. I hear a man's voice through speakers twenty-feet away.
"We gather here tonight to honor those who lost their lives from a terrorist attack. In memory of these lost souls, please raise your candles." I raise a candle to the sky, along with everyone else.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.05.2010

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