I was down in the PATH train terminal at Hoboken. Everyone rushed to catch the train that was there. Rather than get in that one, I decided to wait for the next train. I had time to kill.

When we got up the escalators, the police told us to go to our right. I thought it was odd that all the shops in the underground mall were barred and gated. A stampede of people ran from the north tower entrance and we jogged with them for a bit until I thought I looked pretty stupid, so I walked the rest of the way with some other people.

Outside, a group of gawkers were looking up. It looked like a cigarette standing on end. The top twenty floors were covered in smoke, there was a ring of burning embers just below it.

I walked to my office and tried to find out what happened. CNN said a plane had hit the north tower. I thought it was a small plane. Possibly the pilot had a heart attack and hit the most inconvenient thing around.

I went to RinkChat to see if Elly was up and might know what was going on. You see, at the time I pictured Elly living in a newsroom. If anyone knew what happened, le petite reporter would.

I don't know who all was there. Lynette was, maybe three others. Lynette was idle.

I'm not certain of the order things happened from here to the evacuation. I called Tamara once and her office twice, once to let her officemate know what just happened, once on the way out to let him know that we were evacuating. There was an explosion. I jumped to the window. Something large and white fell outside. Building part? Plane bit? One of the acoustic tiles fell in the office. They shouted to evacuate the building. I grabbed my laptop. I AIMed Lynette a one-word message: evacuating.

For the longest time, I thought that the first attack happened just before 9, the second one at 9:18. My watch must've been fast.

I called my mom on the cell phone I just happened to be carrying that day. "I'm all right, I'm okay," I said to her. She didn't know what happened. "The World Trade Center was attacked. Both towers are gone." This was quite a time before the towers collapsed. I kept repeating I was okay and I was on my way away from the whole mess. The phone line went dead.

Later, I found out that the planes were passenger airliners, hijacked. Thank God, I thought to my selfish little self. If they were small planes loaded with nerve gas, I would have died when they let me off the PATH.

I walked.

Strangers were talking to each other. I saw thousands of people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. I wouldn't have. Aside from a fear of heights (and a mild fear of bridges), if I planned these attacks, I'd blow up the WTC first, then blow the bridges thirty minutes, an hour later. I tried to get past City Hall and the federal building as quickly as possible. In SoHo, I walked along what amounted to the side streets in the city. Stay away from large groups of people. Stay alert. Keep moving.

The PATH train in Greenwich Village was still running. I remember two people on that ride back to Hoboken. One had just come down from some high floor in the WTC. His suit was dirty. The other boarded right behind me. He said that one tower had fallen.

We went to Hoboken. Virtually everyone had cell phones. Only one or two people could get calls through. One guy said something about how he left his keys on his desk back in the WTC.

We sat in Hoboken for an eternity, it seemed. If I planned these attacks, I'd hit the WTC first, then transportation hubs about an hour or two later. But we're in New Jersey right now -- a terrorist would probably stage their acts just in Manhattan.

I arrived in Clifton and walked home. Tamara wasn't there. It seems she was just past or at the toll booths on the George Washington Bridge when the second plane hit. She was stuck on the Manhattan side of the river when they closed the bridges. Around three or so, they opened the bridge up for about an hour. She managed to get across then and drive home.

We pretty much stayed inside for the rest of the day.

-Faux "decided not to watch television today." Pas