Of Flight 11, Buildings Falling, and Other Terrors

We were awake early. Not much was said. We did not look at each other, Omari and I. We spoke only to Allah. We asked for salvation, for this day in history to be successful in His eyes. We were not scared. We could not be scared. We were men, we were not children. It was for the name of Allah. It was all for Allah. The Nissan Altima we'd rented had an air freshener hanging from the mirror, vanilla scented. I flicked it with my fingers, watched it spin and sway on it's fragile strings. America, the world, hung from fragile ropes. Today we'd cut them. ~ ~ ~ “We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport. Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.” They were in turmoil. They could not have understood that this was for Allah, that this was good, this was planned, this had to happen. They could not comprehend that this was not murder but sacrament. That we were not killers, but messengers. “Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves.” I held the microphone in my hand, staring out the windshield at the heavens we would all be so blessed as to roam in a matter of moments. Allah wafted through embassies, seas and atmospheres, through walls and engines and windows, and accompanied us. We cowered before him. He reclined in the faith that we would obey his demands. And he waited. Omari knelt before him in prayer. He was not afraid. He could not be afraid. There was nothing to fear. We were on our way to Allah. But we are human, Omari and I. You cannot blame us for sweating. Outside the cabin, the Americans cried, screamed. Some tried to revolt. Some stared out the windows. Some made phone calls on hand held devices and sobbed at whoever was waiting on the other line. It would not matter. We were going to Allah. But they could not have understood. Allah was smiling. He was waiting and he was calm. He was calm but never pleased. We must always be vigilant and pleasing. We must never mistake these roles. This is another thing the Americans could not have understood as they sobbed into pieces of metal and plastic. That they had mistaken their role as underling. The target loomed on the horizon, beacons. To us, of promise. To them, of doom. They could not have known otherwise. Omari sweat, trying to conceal this sin in a mask of prayer. Behind us, Allah watched and waited, counting what we knew were redeemers, but would be noted as casualties. He was not afraid. For once we were pleasing him. We could relax in his presence. We were doing what he wanted. We were thin and fragile strings with little substance or bone. He could crush us with a twinge of his fingers, a flick of his eye brow. I sat before him, and I dared to look my King and savior in the eye. He was amused. People screamed behind us. People cried behind us. “Having second thoughts, my child?” People stopped screaming and started embracing. They were accepting what could not be argued. “This is the right thing. This is what you were made to do, child.” Omari's prayers made sounds, echoing off the dashboard, sweat pooling at his fingers. People cried, people screamed, there'd be no acceptance. They could not understand. The sound of it drummed along my ears, their fear and despair wrapping themselves around my bones and strangling, shaking. Their panic surged through my veins, and I willed the torment of their screams to escape me, but louder and louder and louder they grew. Hands clamped across my ears I looked at Allah smiling at me and I knew that he could not hear. He could not hear the screaming. The buildings would fall and he would not feel the weight of it. People would burn and he would not know the sting of it. Screams would enrapture whole worlds and he would shroud himself in silence so easily, so damned easily. “Fight in the cause of me,” he said simply. I could count the bricks on the towers now. I could see people through the windows. I saw a woman at a desk. A man at a machine. A man at the telephone. A woman staring at me, through the glass, her mug of coffee dropping and shattering while she stood, unable to move. I looked at Allah. Omari closed his eyes. All in the name of Allah, all in the name of Allah, all in the name of Allah. Behind us, they screamed a scream you have never heard. They cried in ways I did not know to be possible. “Do you hear them?” I asked Him. But Allah only smiled. So Omari flew the plane. Buildings falling. People screaming. People dying. I went through windows. I went through walls. Bodies in pieces. Bodies that did not exist anymore. I found Allah in the fires. He said “No, child. I do not hear what is insignificant.” Omari's fingers flew through air, one by one. The woman's coffee mug was dust in his nails. I looked at Allah, square in the eye. I told him, “I was wrong. You were wrong. We were all wrong,” because the screams were inside of me. The fire licks beneath my skin as I deteriorate. “You were wrong. This was wrong,” I scream, the sound of it inaudible beneath the noise of the Hell we have created in the name of Heaven, because the sounds of apology and motive cannot silence the sounds of death and the finality of desolation that would be unforgivable. So buildings fell. Planes obliterated themselves. People screamed, halted to a silence. Ringing in me. The sounds of it pounding, blaring within me long after the people watching from below stopped listening. “You were wrong.” is what I tell him. “This was wrong.” But we crashed planes. We collapsed buildings. We silenced screams. And it was too late for a change of heart.