It was early afternoon and I was at work.

I didn't have anything to do, so I was surfing, as I tend to. There was a message on this very forum along the lines of "I just saw the second 'plane hit the WTC. What's going on?".

I didn't understand.

I went outside for a cigarette five minutes later, and heard someone on their phone, discussing what had happened. When I got back inside, I managed to find a news website that hadn't been overloaded (no mean feat), and I finally understood what had happened.

I was stunned.

I had the dubious honour of spreading the news round the building. A meeting I was supposed to attend the next day in one of the larger government buildings (I forget which department, now) got cancelled. Apparently, this was completely unrelated, but it still freaked me out. I remember asking my group's secretary about it, to find out that she hadn't heard about the WTC, and that she hadn't lived in London long enough to be blasé about the threat of terrorist attacks.

They diverted all aeroplanes flying over the city. That felt weird. They seemed to divert them all over my house, so when I was at home there'd be a 'plane every few seconds, and when I was at work, there'd be none.

I saw the security ratings in government offices (which basically define how likely I was to die in a terrorist explosion) jump through the roof for a few weeks, and slowly settle back down again. Everyone in London was jumpy for a while. Everyone expected we would be the next target. Eventually, it became clear that there was no "next target", and things went back to normal. Almost.

wintermute