I was a member of a crazy cult, working as a volunteer at a factory in Brooklyn. A short walk from the World Trade Center and onto the Brooklyn Bridge, where you could see the tan and green of the five-building factory complex (with its odd slogans painted on the sides for all to see) sprouting up from the Brooklyn foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Inside we slaved for fifty hours a week, sweating over big machines to print books of slogans, translated in a hundred languages, to be sent all over the world. In exchange, we were holy, and had views of Manhattan from our tiny shared dorm-style rooms.
Yesterday, my brother turned 23, but we didn’t celebrate it, because to do so would have been a sin. He worked in a different building, a few blocks south along the waterfront.
My overseer called me over that morning and asked if I could give a tour of the factory. I changed out of my dirty factory clothes – an old spotted t-shirt, chinos I had found in the donation center, that were now loose from my factory-induced weight loss, and a pair of sturdy shoes – and into my street clothes. I had to put on a tie, because I was going to be giving a tour. I combed my hair, and reported to the lobby. It was a Tuesday, but for some reason it felt a bit like a Saturday, when we would come into work for a half-day, and get to have the afternoon to ourselves.
I took the visiting family through the various floors of the factory, and showed them the entire binding process, as was my routine for the occasional tours that I guided. We arrived on my floor, called "3-8" because it was building 3, and the 8th floor, and saw the Manhattan skyline through the windows that spanned reached to near the top of the wall, and its 15-foot ceiling. My tour group pointed out a fiery spot on the side of one of the world trade center buildings. I looked and told them not to panic, that it was probably a small aircraft, and that I was sure they would be taking care of the fire soon. I was sure. But, to be cautious, I wrapped up the tour and took the family back to the lobby. When I returned to 3-8, the fire and smoke were growing, and billowing out of the side of the building.
A group of us stood lined up against the windows, watching with mouths agape, as another plane, impossibly low and large, came into view. I heard a couple people murmur "No!" in disbelief, and then I heard guttural expressions of anguish as it slammed into the building. This was the first moment that the more naïve among us realized that today was no accident.
Factory overseers weren’t sure what to do. They evacuated everyone from the factory into one of the buildings’ basement dining room, for a half an hour to make sure it wasn’t an all out air attack, and then sent us back to our floors. Soon, floor overseers were telling everyone to close all the windows. We didn’t know why, until, a few moments later, we watched in disbelief as the building began to disintegrate right before our eyes. A cloud of dust crossed the river, and enveloped us within seconds. We could see nothing. We wouldn’t see that the second building had collapsed until after the dust cleared.
Survivors had been streaming over the bridge into our lobby, which was the nearest building.
I walked home that evening through the cloudy air, which reeked like burning plastic. My brother was ok. My friends were ok (even a few of them that were supposed to be there in the tower that day, but had decided to sleep in, or had something else come up). Over the next few days, we could feel how the city natives had softened their tone when talking to each other, and we heard of all the people volunteering to help out. Inside the factory walls, though, we learned how we should get back to work, and not be too shaken up about the events of this world (it was going to pass away in an eschatological manner, after all). Hot tears of indignation burned my cheeks. My brother stopped believing. He left the factory, New York, and the cult when the smell went away from the city.
I stayed until spring. My Arabic friends and I all had our phones tapped. We’d look out the window to see 4 Verizon vans parked for extended periods on our block, and heard breathing or clicking on our phones all the time. In the spring I left the factory, and bummed around New York for a year, before leaving New York, and the cult, myself. I watched as the FBI raided a mosque on Atlantic Avenue for "funneling money to Al Qaeda". I heard Noam Chomsky warn that this event would be used as an excuse to clamp down on civil liberties. I watched in disbelief as Iraq became the target of retaliation. And I wondered, "Where are those people? The good ones, the ones that took care of each other, gave each other water and food and said nice, comforting things. We could use more of them."