Philosophy

I remember I was walking home from an associates house with one of my best friends by my side. We were walking towards the bus stop when we glanced at an electronics store by accident and a big screen television in the window was showing an image of a plane crashing into what I thought was some Japanese sky scraper. I thought it was some new movie, but within the time frame of seconds, I realized that it was anything but a movie, and realization hit me at the speed of thought. It was breaking news about the passenger aircraft hitting the world trade center.

I and my friend stood by the roadside, and a small crowd gathered around the window of the electronics store.  The crowd dispersed within minutes as phones began to ring and I remember I began to walk home with my friend. My friend walked beside me and we were running home before we knew it. I got home and my friend, living only one block down, kept running. I do not remember if it was my mother I walked into first or my sibling. Nonetheless, we were in front of the television set before we knew it and lost in shock.

I felt as if I wanted to run and I kept expecting war to break out. Every siren in the street made me picture images of the bloodshed of war and I think I began to shiver out of fear. What comes as strange is that I dont remember anything concretely beyond this point until it was dinner time. I do not remember who I spoke to and what was said. All I can recall is that I was glued to my television set for the rest of the day and well into the night. What I do remember clearly is that I could hear people crying as I heard the news of the four planes colliding (Johnstone, 2006).

I asked my friend who I had been with earlier, to tell me about the sequence of events that he had experienced. I was quite amazed to see that there were differences between our recollections of the day in the very beginning. My friend said that he I had pointed towards the big screen television in the window and that he had gotten a call on his cell phone at the same time. Whereas all I managed to recall were people shouting, screaming and crying. My friend further recalls that military vehicles passed us as we ran towards our houses but I do not remember hearing military vehicles blaring through the streets until after I got home.

These are not the only differences, a profound point of concern here is that my friend recalls that we were nearly hit by a car as we ran across a road, but I cannot recall any of this. However, it is strange that when I consider it, I can bring myself to picture such a scenario occurring and I can bring myself to clearly see all of it happening, even though most of it I still find hard to believe. There are a lot of things that I have now added to my mental illustration of the events that took place that day. For one, I can now see my friend receiving a call and I can now see military vehicles running at top speeds across the roads as we ran.

I suppose there are differences between my recollection of the day and my friends recollection. I admit it is hard to consider that a day that is seemingly etched so completely in my memory has fabrications and voids in it, but I cannot deny that the differences exist.