A Tuesday in September
Prose by Jennifer Caputo-Seidler
How differently things would have gone if that college fair had been scheduled for the morning
rather than the afternoon. I would have boarded a bus early that Tuesday with my classmates and
driven into the city. Instead of sitting in Mr. Mo’s art class and hearing Principal Trummer come
over the loudspeaker to announce that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, I would
have been there and seen the plane hit with my own eyes. Or maybe traffic would have been
light, and we would already have been off the bus and inside the tower and felt the building quake
with the plane’s impact. If that college fair had been in the morning, my photo could have been
one of the thousands plastered missing. But when the first plane struck we weren’t scheduled to
leave for another couple of hours. So I was at my usual third-period seat wondering how a plane
could accidentally hit the World Trade Center, never imagining that such an action could be
taken on purpose. Even as the full events of that day unfolded, the school did not turn on any
televisions for us, so I didn’t grasp the extent of what had happened. It wasn’t until I arrived
home that afternoon to my parents glued to the news that I finally saw and fully understood how
differently things could have gone that day.
rather than the afternoon. I would have boarded a bus early that Tuesday with my classmates and
driven into the city. Instead of sitting in Mr. Mo’s art class and hearing Principal Trummer come
over the loudspeaker to announce that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, I would
have been there and seen the plane hit with my own eyes. Or maybe traffic would have been
light, and we would already have been off the bus and inside the tower and felt the building quake
with the plane’s impact. If that college fair had been in the morning, my photo could have been
one of the thousands plastered missing. But when the first plane struck we weren’t scheduled to
leave for another couple of hours. So I was at my usual third-period seat wondering how a plane
could accidentally hit the World Trade Center, never imagining that such an action could be
taken on purpose. Even as the full events of that day unfolded, the school did not turn on any
televisions for us, so I didn’t grasp the extent of what had happened. It wasn’t until I arrived
home that afternoon to my parents glued to the news that I finally saw and fully understood how
differently things could have gone that day.
About the Writer
Jennifer Caputo-Seidler is a physician, educator, and writer. She is passionate about the intersection of medicine and humanities. She is part of the production team of the medical humanities Twitter chat MedHumChat. Follow her on Twitter @jennifermcaputo.
