Demolition Lovers

"But Gerard, please come tonight. It's Pencey Prep's second show and it's not that far from your house. I'll even pick you up." Frank pleaded through the phone.

"Hmmm, I don't know Frank. I might not be able to make it." I replied.

"Pleaseeeeee, Gee Bear?" He begged, I sighed; feeling my resolve start to crumble.

"Okay, I'll see if I can go. What 'bout Mikey?"

"Yeah, he’s with me; invite your friends as well." I snorted, what friends?

"Well, I guess I’ll see you tonight, Frankie." I replied, "See ya, Gee." I smiled, the nickname bringing back old memories.

It was an odd day to hold a concert, with Tuesday being in at the start of the week. Things like concerts and gigs are usually on weekends or Fridays.

I put my phone down and walked into my room to get ready, I owned a small apartment in Belleville, it wasn’t much but at least I had somewhere to call home I guess. When I was dressed in my black skinny jeans and a plain white tee, I grabbed my leather jacket and made my way out of the apartment.

The trip to Manhattan, where Frank lived, was almost a three hour drive, considering the traffic at this time of day. But the ferry I usually took was only about a two hour trip; so I was going with the latter today.

I had been on the ferry for about an hour and a half when I looked up and was able to see the sky rises of New York. Frank so owes me, my legs were going numb for sitting for so long. I looked back down at the sketch book placed in my lap, ready to continue sketching, but all I could hear was the back and forth bickering of the two teenage girls in front of me; about what I had absolutely no idea.

It was most likely something completely and utterly pointless. One girl had black hair, while the other had blonde, and as I saw the mother, she had brown hair. Weird.

When I looked at the mother of the two girls, she was doing nothing but texting on a small flip-phone; and although it reminded me of Mikey, I was annoyed that she wasn’t doing anything to quieten the two girls.

After about five more minutes of the arguing, they had finally shut up and I looked up to see the girl with black hair listening to an iPod through earbuds. I recognized The Smiths playing due to the alarmingly loud volume at which the music was playing at.

I once again glanced down and began to sketch in my notebook, it was the story of a man, a woman, and the corpses of a thousand evil men or as I prefer to call them, Demolition Lovers.

The peaceful silence was once again interrupted by the sound of planes flying overhead; I groaned in annoyance, looking up. I made eye contact with the black haired girl and she gave me a small smile before her eyes seemed to wander to the right of my head, looking at something behind me.

I frowned, about to ask what was wrong when she suddenly started screaming, her eyes as wide as saucers. What the… I quickly craned my neck, trying to twist my body in the seat to see what the heck was happening behind me. But when I did, I suddenly wished I hadn’t.

I could hear the screams from the other passenger’s erupt from behind me, but I could only stare on in shock, unable to let even a sound escape. In front of me, not even 100 meters away the World Trade Centre was practically on fire.

But even from here and through all the smoke I could see them falling, the bodies. Oh god there were so many bodies, and all I could hear were the screams surrounding me.

And in this moment we can't close the lids on burning eyes,

After seeing what we saw, can we still reclaim our innocence?