I listened to an interesting podcast a few years ago (I believe it was Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History, but it may have been a different one), where he discussed the fallacy of memory.  In the experiment, they asked multiple people to write down details of what was happening after witnessing a significant event.  In the experiment, they asked witnesses to write down details of the 9/11 attack.  Then, they went back a year later and asked the witnesses to retell the account.  What they discovered was that the accounts varied significantly – what people were wearing, how they heard the news, what time etc., AND that the witnesses were adamant that their later recollection was correct.  From this, I personally consider the role of the unreliable narrator.  Sometimes a narrator is unreliable through intent, and sometimes just through a changed recollection.

So….I’ve written (rough drafts) of 3 accounts of 9/11, told from my perspective and that of two colleagues in New York at the time.  Where this appears in my writing is in the exploration of what characters believe to be “truth”, which isn’t necessarily so.

Boom! Loud Rolling thunder and the building shivers around me.  More crashes!  Tina dives under her desk, conditioned as she is in the 1980s American classroom.  The sky is blue.  Something is wrong.  A screeching of metal on metal.  I place my coffee on the desk, watching the ripples in the dark liquid.  Something is very wrong.  “Tina.  We have to get out of here.”  She shakes her head, crying.  Papers float past the window, an eerie snowstorm in September.  “Now!” I grab her by the arm, and we head for the exit.

I’m crammed in the PATH train at Journal Square.  Four stops from the World Trade Center.  God, the traffic was awful today.  I left plenty of time, but here I am, 8:50 am, and I’m going to have to rush to make the 10 am meeting.  Audrey will be pissed.  Suddenly, everyone’s phones are lighting up around me.  Anxious faces.  “A plane? What kind? Which tower?”  The train trundles on into the tunnel, and everyone loses signal.  The conductor comes on the intercom.  There has been a minor incident at the World Trade Center.  We will divert to Christopher St.  I groan.  Now I’m definitely going to miss the meeting.

The CNBC host pauses for a second.  We have breaking news.  There has been an accident at the World Trade Center.  My attention shifts from the pre-market moves to the TV.  This could be bad for the markets today.  A camera turns to face the Trade Center.  “Oh, no!” The entire side of the building is in flames.  The host continues, Apparently, a small plane has hit the tower.   “That’s not a small plane,” I say to John.  Then, on the left side of the shot, horror as another plane flies directly into the other tower.  “Oh my god.  We are under attack!”

David