Under attack

On a pretty September morning nearly four years ago, I woke up in my one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, took a shower, got dressed, and turned on the television.

On a split screen, one side showed smoke pouring out of the Twin Towers, the other showed smoke pouring out of the Pentagon.

"What film is this?" I thought, and I started clicking through my mental index of action films with buildings on fire. As a former film studies major and current entertainment industry employee, it's a pretty comprehensive list.

Then Dan Rather came on the screen. "Dan Rather was in a movie?" I wondered aloud, and even as it slowly began to sink in that I was watching live, actual news footage and not a fictional film, I still ran through movie titles in my head.

That's how surreal the day felt to me. I even kept my early morning dental appointment. As the hygienist and I silently watched the events unfolding on the small TV mounted above the dental chair, my cell phone would ring. And ring. I would interrupt the hygienist's work to speak to friends, relatives, my staff. It wasn't until work was cancelled for the day that I finally understood that the world had changed. And it would never be quite the same again.

Although, y'know, you live your life. It goes on. So today, I woke up in my London maisonette, got dressed, kissed my husband goodbye, went to the gym, showered, got dressed again, and got on the Tube. As I passed through the turnstiles the message board caught my eye: three stations closed due to "power failure:" Bank, Westminster and Liverpool Street. Station closures are common enough that I didn't give it another thought except to note that three seemed rather excessive and, with the successful Olympic bid now counting down a clock, I hoped Transport for London would be able to sort that out in the next seven years. I got off at my regular tube stop and walked to work, unaware that the next station on the line would be the scene of a bomb attack.

I'm safe, my husband is safe, my co-workers and friends are safe, and I am incredibly grateful to be able to type these words. I'll be angry soon, but for now I am just happy that everyone I care about is healthy and accounted for.

It's back to feeling surreal; I'm watching it on the television like I did four years ago, even though the events are much closer geographically this time. The shock and horror diminish the further in time we get from the bombs; the news has gone from covering breaking events to talking heads sorting through the scant available evidence, trying to make reasonable the unreasonable, trying to enforce an order on chaos. The talk in the hallway has shifted from hushed murmurs to excitable chatter to impatient wondering about when can we go home? How will we get home?


****

They lock our building down until around noon. The police evacuated the buildings across the street, but told us to stay put. See, we have blast proof glass; the guys across the street just have the normal break-y kind. Ah, the advantages of working overseas for a US company - you automatically think you will be a target. Members of my staff tried to go next door, to see the colleagues who work there, but were refused entry even with their security passes. However, they said that Number 38 busses were lined up and down the street. The rumor is that the police are checking them for explosives since apparently it was a Number 38 that blew up in Russell Square, just 'round the corner.

Sirens scream past.

There are only three kinds of sandwiches left in the canteen downstairs. It's been raided by the locked-in employees who would normally go elsewhere for substenance. I'm starving. My Starbucks latte and low fat carrot cake are long consumed memories; they were eaten pre-bomb news and so it feels like I last ate an eon ago. I take the most appealing of the bunch: chicken and pesto on white sandwich bread. When I get the sandwich upstairs to my desk, I discover the bread has been buttered. WTF??? Butter on a chicken and pesto sandwich??? While I have long known of the British penchant for buttering their sandwiches regardless of filling, this throws me. Badly. I've lost my equilibrium for even the most trivial of matters.

I could have had the fish, the featured hot meal of the day.

But I couldn't face eating a trout with skin, tail fins, and bones still intact. Not today.


****

At 3:30, Human Resources finally gives us the all clear to go home. There's been little enough work done, although there has also been little panic or moaning. I have a feeling no one will call the emotional health hotline number with which HR kindly provides us. We start to make travel plans. Some of us will walk to the nearest open train station or to home itself. One brought his bicycle to work and can pedal home. Another will meet her partner at his work and then bum a ride from a friend. Still another gets a ride in a senior executive's car service. I'm walking.

The streets are crowded. I've never seen the sidewalks so full. Rivers of humanity, flowing through London with the strength of the Thames exponentially multiplied. I'm jostled and bumped, flotsam in the current.

I left my work tote at the office, but the gym bag is strapped to my back - Monday will be difficult enough without dealing with damp, sweaty clothes left to ferment for three days. It's heavy, thanks to the book, water, and wedge espadrilles I threw in. But the Nikes are on my feet. I'm now sold on going to the gym - thanks to forcing myself out of bed at 6:00 a.m., I missed being trapped on the tube and now have comfy shoes for the four mile walk home. I will never bitch about my body's refusal to keep weight off without working out again.

The walk to Marble Arch goes quickly in comradely conversation. I say goodbye to my co-workers, who are off to scavenge a train at Paddington. My husband is waiting for me at the marble monument, near the spot where once grew a tree where the villains, traitors and just plain unfortunates of an earlier London were hung. The street bears the old name of the gallows: Tyburn. It makes me realize that life has always been uncertain - and religion has always been used as an excuse to kill and maim political rivals. I would still rather live in the 21st century with al-Quaeda's cowardly, unmanly and blasphemous attacks than to live in, say, Tudor England during Henry VIII's reformation or his daughter Queen Mary's attempt to reinstate the Roman Catholic Church.

Hyde Park is full of pedestrians. My husband remarks it looks more like a highway than a park path. Sirens continue to scream past.

We run into good friends at our local Tesco. They agree to come over for dessert after we finish our respective dinners. We nurture our friendship over strawberries and cream and share our stories, our near misses. It would be the perfect ending to any other day.