Cold, Hard, Cement of N.Y.C.
September 11th, 2006
It was 7:15am, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Lilly Montcow was extremely sick. Lilly coughed. Her head hurt. It had been years since she had gotten sick like this. Her mom was visiting her aunt in Florida, and her dad had to go to work in ten minutes.
“Lilly, you can’t stay home, you might get Mammie sick,” said Mr. Montcow.
“But Dad! Emily will keep Grandma away from me! Please. I don’t want to go to your work, it smells weird,” Lilly protested.
“Lilly Rene Montcow, you are coming with Daddy to work, and that is final.”
“Hmph!” Lilly crossed her arms across her chest, and coughed. Then she stomped out of the room, sneezing all the way out.
As Lilly stepped in to the World Trade Center, she immediately smelled liver and onions. Bleck. Who likes liver? Lilly had no idea, but it was stinking up the whole building. Mr. Montcow, and Lilly stood in the elevator for what seemed like an hour with Lilly sneezing every two seconds, and Mr. Montcow dodging her, trying not to get sick. Mr. Montcow’s office was on the 100th floor, which Lilly thought was completely stupid. Who puts somebody’s office 100 floors off of the ground? At least they didn’t have to take the stairs. Finally, they were there. All the way at the top of the building…almost.
“Lay down here, Lilly,” Mr. Montcow pointed to a spot on the floor.
“Gee, thanks, Dad,” said Lilly, putting her head on the cold, hard carpet.
“No!” screamed Lilly’s dad. “Wait ’till I put down the plastic! I can’t risk getting sick Lilly, this is my job! Daddy has to pay for the house!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t mind me, I’m just the half-dead person here!” shouted Lilly sarcastically.
“You’ll be fine, Lilly,” said her father firmly as he rolled a second layer of plastic wrap on to the carpet. When he finished, he said, “Now Lilly, you stay here, and rest quietly. I have important work to do.”
“Dad, I’m fourteen now, you don’t need to treat me like a baby, okay?” replied Lilly, starting to get mad.
“If you would act your age, maybe I wouldn’t have to treat you like a child!” Mr. Montcow shouted back at her.
“I do act my age, you just never let me-”
“Lilly Rene!” Mr. Montcow cut Lilly off.
“Sorry,” said Lilly through her whitish, yellowish, teeth.
It had been an hour. The time was now 8:55. Lilly was extremely bored. She tried to sleep, but she was too uncomfortable. She wanted to watch TV, but her dad wouldn’t let her. The office had absolutely nothing to eat, and Lilly really wanted some chicken soup. Five minutes had gone by. It was now 9:00. BOOM! All the windows in the office shattered in to thousands of tiny pieces. What was that?
“Dad? What just happened?”asked Lilly.
“I don’t know, it was probably nothing to worry about. Just settle down and be quiet. Daddy’s trying to work,” replied Mr. Moscow. Lilly wanted to scream. When would he understand that she wasn’t four years old!!! Then came a large, scratchy noise.
A loud voice came on the speaker above them, “Attention, workers. A plane just crashed in to the other tower here, at the World Trade Center. Please proceed with your daily work as you normally would. If anything more happens, we will notify you. Thank you, and have a nice day.” Lilly’s heart started to pound. She didn’t know what to think. Was it an accident? It had to be. Lilly decided to try and sleep to keep her mind off of the crash.
The bunny sniffed the bright yellow flower, as the butterfly landed on it’s ear. Everything was so peaceful and quiet. What a beautiful d- BOOM!!! Lilly woke up with a jolt. The lady from the speaker came back on with a screech. “A second plane has just hit this tower. Please, everybody just be calm, fire fighters are on their way, please go back to your normal activities. Thank you, and have a wonderful day.”
“Dad! Did you hear that? We have to get out!” Lilly started screaming hysterically.
“Lilly, they told everybody to be calm, it’ll be okay,” replied her father.
“Of course that’s what they’re gonna say! They’re not gonna say, yeah, a plane crashed, by the way, you’re gonna die!” screamed Lilly at her father. “Where did the plane crash, anyway?” Lilly ran over to the window, and as she did, her shirt brushed against Mr. Montcow’s jacket. Mr. Montcow shrieked. “Sorry, Dad.” Lilly stuck her head out of the pointy-edged window, but couldn’t see anything, so she leaned out farther, until she was almost completely out of the window. Lilly looked up, but only saw the sky. She looked straight down and saw a whole lot of smoke and something else. Lilly squinted, the smoke was starting to sting her eyes. She couldn’t see very well, but she could barely make out something. Lilly almost started breathing. What she saw was the tail end of an airplane. The plane had crashed below the floor she was on. How were they going to get out? Would one of those ladders on top of the firetruck reach. Probably not, she was more than 800 feet in the air. They only had two choices. They could wait, and see if the fire trucks could put out the fire, or they could jump out the window. Either way they were risking their lives. “Daddy-” started Lilly.
“Just a minute Lil-” There was a loud crash, not like the first ones though. Lilly looked back out the window. The other tower had collapsed. The voice came on the speaker one more time.
“Attention! The first tower has collapsed. Please form an orderly line, and proceed down the stairs carefully. Thank you so, oh whatever.” The lady started screaming before she finished her sentence.
“Daddy! What are we going to do? This building could collapse any minute, and we’re going to be stuck! Daddy! We’re going to die! Daddy!! Help!! Please! Call somebody!” Lilly leaned out the window, and looked up, a single brick fell and crumbled once it hit the hard ground. Suddenly, three more bricks fell, then ten, then thirty. The building was collapsing! Lilly leaned farther out the window. She was trying to find some way out. If she could just see, a little farther. Lilly coughed…and then slipped. Lilly screamed as loud as she could. She fell out the window! Mr. Montcow ran to the window and looked down. There was his daughter. Right there. And over there….and over there. He started to cry. Maybe he should have been a little nicer. Now she was dead. Mr. Zachary Montcow sat down in his rollie chair, and waited for the building to collapse.
Rockinwithacdc12 said:
That was really good!
I liked the part where lily is laying on the floor and she is sick in all and all her dad cares about is him getting sick and then he in guilt when she dies. It’s cool and sad.. well very sad when she falls out the window and the force rips her into like a million pieces
RubyRedSlippers said:
This made me cry. It made me think of my dad’s office on the 56′th floor and all of his friends. Even though I kind of wished I had never read this it still was good. It reminded me of the smell (even though it smelt good like carmel and popcorn instead of liver and onions) and just reminded me of every thing about it. Actually I have to thank you this made it real that I won’t see or smell them ever again.
acdcrocks10 said:
That was really good. I liked how the dad only cared about his daughter after she died.