The World Trade Towers held the sunset’s reflection when it was time to leave work. Crowds departed though revolving doors, pushing their way to subways and buses.
The closest window to Diana’s desk looked out over the Hudson when she worked on the 50th floor. Close to the shoreline, the water was a dark and forceful blue. The view was like a postcard.
Monica, Diana’s boss, stayed late when the team did, having pizza delivered though a labyrinth of hallways. Her reedy voice and ready smile convinced Diana and her co-workers to do any amount of work she asked for. She stood by each of them in turn, tall and svelte with short blonde hair.
Something about the building was disquieting, especially at night. The sheer magnitude. The stark white tile in the ladies’ room leaked a hygienic deadliness.
Once, Diana rode up in a blue-lined elevator with a toddler and his mother. As soon as they started moving, the boy wouldn’t stop screaming. If Diana had not been a civilized adult, she would have joined in. The vastness of the place flummoxed almost everyone.
Eventually, Diana resigned to take a job in midtown. The pre-war office building was tiny compared to the towers. On that clear day in September more than ten years later, the towers disintegrated in a cloud of smoke that filled the sky. Until that day, Diana could see them when she looked down the avenue where she and her toddler son lived.
Dust rained down on lower Manhattan and settled over everything. When Diana took her boy out in his stroller, she tied blue bandannas around his mouth and hers for protection. On the way to the supermarket, he’d torn off his bandanna and started crying because he had no words for the scorched odor that was everywhere. Afterwards, Diana sat with him on the couch and told him a story that he could not yet understand.
Elizabeth B. Morse won first prize for flash fiction in Cardinal Sins. Her poetry collection, Unreasonable Weather, published by Kelsay Books, was a finalist in poetry for the 2026 International Book Awards. Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
This ripped me. So many times in those buildings for work related matters. So glad it wasn't my base. A horrible day, and the weeks that followed. Horrible beyond imagining.
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