This is not a story of heroes or of courage. This story does not have any bells or whistles. It is not meant to entertain or inspire. It is not a story of personal loss or global understanding. All it is is an account of how the terrible events unfolded to me on September 11, 2001.

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One Tuesday in New York
- Essay by Bryon Cahill

Now first off, I acknowledge that the retelling of events as they happened through my eyes is as wildly arrogant as it is unimportant. The entire world witnessed the horror of that terrible day. I am certainly not here to ignore or lessen anyone's tale or emotions. But here, at the 5 year anniversary of 9/11, I feel the overwhelming need to try to say something.

I was living in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn at the time. I was working as an Editorial Assistant at a children's publishing company in New York City. It was what I considered to be my first "real" job in the "real" world. And I was quite content with everything. I was young and living in the Big Apple! When I called it that, people gave me a look as if to say, "Don't be a tourist. If you're gonna be a New Yorker, be a New Yorker." But I couldn't help it. Every day as I walked through the city streets, I gazed up at the buildings that went on forever. How was it possible that I could be a part of something so huge?

Bay Ridge is about as far away from midtown Manhattan that you can get and still be a part of it all. Every morning, I would walk the five blocks from my apartment to the subway station. Bay Ridge was the very last stop on the R line, so when the train came, the doors opened, the people got out, and then it sat there. Along with other Bay Ridgers, I would find myself a seat and plant myself down, waiting patiently for the conductor to start it up again and head out in the opposite direction.

It was an hour ride to midtown. I didn't mind it much. I always had a seat and a book and I got a lot of my reading done in that two hour commute back and forth. In the fall of 2001, I was reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a mammoth of a book if you ever saw one. It called for every ounce of my concentration.

September 11th was a gorgeous Tuesday morning. A slave to my routine, I was on the R train around 8:00. As the train started up, I was glued to my book. The people around me became shadows.

Back then, the R train passed right under the World Trade Center. It was an incredibly busy stop and one that I never got off at. That morning, my train stopped at Cortlandt Street, under the Twin Towers, as it always did. The doors did not open immediately.

"We are only picking up passengers at Cortlandt," the train conductor said over the loudspeaker. "Please remain on the train." I hardly heard him. I was buried in my book.

Only two or three people got on and I only looked up when I heard a woman farther down say something like, "A plane just hit the World Trade Center." What? What did she say? I must have misheard her. I went back into my book as the train pulled out of the station. The loudness of the train blurred the crazy woman's words and zoned out her wild, made up tall tales.

In retrospect, I was on one of the last trains to ever pass under the Twin Towers. They stopped service through very shortly after.

Six stops later, I got off the train. With my book stowed away in my backpack, I walked through the station and up the stairs. When I reached daylight, I immediately knew something was seriously wrong.

In New York City, every hour is rush hour, but at five minutes to nine, people are whizzing by you in every direction. They weren't. Not this day. On this day, traffic was either slowed or stopped. On this day, every single person was staring up at something. They were all looking at something behind me.

I turned around and for the first time, I saw what everyone was gawking at. One of the twin towers was pouring out black smoke.

I don't know how long I stood there in utter disbelief. It couldn't have been very long though because I wasn't around when the second plane hit the south tower at 9:03.

I remember running. I was running to work. As I ran, my friend and co-worker "Michelle" called out to me. She was visibly upset and didn't know what to do with herself. Together we went into our building and got in the elevator. We rode up to our office on the 14th floor, trying to make sense of things. But we couldn't. We just didn't know.

Some of our co-workers were up there in the office when we arrived. Others were down on the street. Everyone in the office seemed to be trying to call loved ones. But the phones were jammed. No one could contact anyone. And to make matters even worse, we were now hearing scattered reports of a second plane. A second plane?!? What?!? There was no television in our office. We were just hearing things via word of mouth.

I booted up my computer as quickly as possible and sent out a blanket email to all my friends and family, just to tell them I was OK. Then I grabbed Michelle and two other close friends from the office, and we headed up to the roof.

In the aftermath of the day, my sister tried to make me feel better by pointing out the stupidity of my actions. "Planes are crashing into buildings and my brother goes up to the roof!" It’s not very funny. Nothing about that day was funny. But at least the comment did bring some levity to an unnerving time.

I don't know why we had access to the roof of my office building, but we did. The door was always open and no one ever disciplined us. We went up there often just to hang out and gaze upon the majestic New York City skyline. But there was nothing majestic about it now.

Our office building was on 26th Street—about 50 blocks from the World Trade Center. On the roof ... it was incomprehensible. I was standing there, hearing in the background, "Oh my God!" and various other exclamations of disbelief. I don't think I spoke though. I just kind of kept walking forward. I was searching for the words but there didn't seem to be any. What could anyone say? The Twin Towers were on fire and the fires were enormous. In the very back of my mind, I thought, "the people", but I wouldn't allow myself to fully grasp this thought. Not yet. It was just unfathomable.

Michelle came up to me and stood next to me. At some point, we both sat down. She started crying again and I held her hand. I don't have the best soothing powers, and before I knew what I was saying, it was out. "Why does God want this?" I asked. I don't know where it came from. It sounded stupid. It was stupid. But I had to say something and that was what finally came out of me.

"God doesn't want this." Michelle said. And still we sat there. From behind us, a co-worker was taking pictures. This was history in the making and we all knew it. I felt shame when I thought of the historical significance of what I was seeing. This was JFK's assassination, Pearl Harbor, and every tragic American event wrapped into one live nightmare, set on fire and shoved down your throat. It was disgusting, it was awful, no, there was no word for what it was, but I was starting to feel it.

"Look at that ..." I said, "Is it just me or does that building look like it's going to fall?"

"Oh my God!" The south tower crumbled before our eyes.

As the smoke and dust began to hover over the City, I couldn't take it anymore. Here was reality slamming home. "We have to get down." I said. But everyone was crying and stunned. "Come on, let's go." I urged, "I don't want to be here if the other one falls. I don't want to see that." I started to walk away, back to the door that would lead us back into the building. But I wasn't about to go alone. "Please. Can we leave? Please?" At last, they came, like zombies, like ghosts, and we made our way back to the office.

I was in shock. Maybe not literal shock but I was definitely confused and emotionally hurt and unsure of what to do with myself. I went back to my desk and tried to call my mom. The phones were impossible. Nothing was getting through. I tried again. I called her collect at the Walk-In Clinic in northern Connecticut. When she picked up the phone and I heard her voice, I lost control.

"Mom?"

"Are you OK? Come home. Come home now."

"I can't come home, Mom. I have to work." Work. Was I really thinking about work? What was I talking about? I was breathing heavy, heaving, crying. The magnitude of what had happened had hit me. It was no longer historic. Hearing my mother's voice sent me spiraling. She knew it, too. All mothers know everything.

"A lot of people got out, Bry."

"What about the firemen? ... Everyone ... "

"It's going to be ... OK." Doubt in her voice. "Come home."

I think I laughed then and somehow found some sense of strength. I wanted to get down on the ground. I wanted to get out of the building. I didn't know where I would go, but I didn't feel safe where I was. I took a deep breath, told her I loved her and that I would call her back soon.

When I hung up, I got moving. Michelle and a few others and I went down to the street. By the time we got down there, both towers were gone. They were just ... gone. Men in suits were crowded around a homeless man who had a radio in his shopping cart. They were listening to the news that was happening right down the street. Yes, it was really happening.

All transportation was shut down. No trains were running anywhere. We headed uptown, away from the terror, away from the danger, away from the most devastating thing I had ever witnessed. For the rest of the day, we sat in an uptown pub, watching the horror replay itself over and over and over again on the big television sets behind the bar. We comforted each other; we comforted strangers and were comforted. It crossed my mind more than once that I should have done something. But what could I do? People were trained for such disasters and they were the heroes. Action was being taken by those who were qualified. Surely, I would have been in the way. But still ...

In the years since, I have looked back many many times. I wish I could change so much about that day. I wish I had paid attention to the woman on the train instead of dismissing her as some rambling New York nut. I wish I had found the right words up on that roof. I wish the right words existed. I wish I could have helped somehow. I wish I could have had some premonition and warned the FAA, the military, the president, the 2,819 people who perished in those towers. But these wishes are preposterous thoughts to entertain. Some things are just out of our control and we have to accept that. We have to honor and remember those who died, whether in tragedy or old age. Each life is meaningful. Everyone's story is important.

I wouldn't wish that day's torment on anyone but everyone lived it. And some days, it is impossible not to relive it. The memories are too close, too real. The best we can all do is live, and try to live well.

Click on the "comments" link below to read more of what students around the country have to say about 9/11, or, to share your own thoughts.