August 1st, 2001, NYC
She was used to the stares.
She got them all the time at school; she would normally just flip up her hood and keep on walking. Her true friends didn’t go there, anyway.
She was used to the looks.
A girl wandering the streets, alone, in a large hoodie no matter what the weather?
Quite the sight, worthy of odd looks. Not that she cared. Her true friends never batted an eye.
She was used to the whispers.
She didn’t look like anyone else, and people tended to judge what didn’t blend in, what they didn’t understand. She didn’t pay any mind to these people, though. Her true friends didn’t lie among them.
She understood why, of course.
Her skin was so pale and greyish it sometimes looked green or blue. Her hair grew so outstandingly thick it resembled feathers more than hair. Her body was round, yet her legs were stick-thin, and her arms managed to somehow be bony and yet still have flabs of skin hanging off them like they were meant for something other than hiding behind thick sleeves. And her eyes. Her eyes were small, beady, and somewhat resembled a blood orange; orange on the outside while blending into a darker red towards the inside with the pointed, black dot that was her pupil, that observed everything around her with more silent judgement than others thought twice about reciprocating.
She was used to it.
September 1st, 2001, NYC
She loved and hated New York City.
It had such a dreadfully high population of people—over 8 million, which was 8 million too many if you asked her—yet also such a high population of those she loved—around 1 million, which was 10 million too few if you asked her.
She’d sometimes climb up to the highest buildings—hotels, apartments, even the World Trade Centers to observe them, to study them, to live with them. Today she was at the top of her apartment building calculating days and prices as much as she observed the pigeons soaring through the air, and the one she had ironically dubbed Ducky nesting behind her.
She got her paycheck from her job at the library the 8th, so she could buy pigeon feed the 9th. The 10th she had multiple big tests at school, and that day, her father got home from his business trip, which her little brother had been positively yipping about for weeks.
That meant the 11th, her school’s off-day, she could head up to the Twin Towers, and maybe pay a visit to the nice janitor of floors 20-30—Polly, who, outside her family, was the only human she liked. Polly would sometimes walk her up to the ledges and upper floors during break times. Her favorite was floor 27 and the ledges on it, where over a dozen pigeonscomfortably nested, and didn’t mind letting her join. Her parents had stable jobs, so she didn’t have to worry about paying bills with her saved up money; $7, what she would most likely have to pay to get to the roof of the South Tower as a teenager, was quite manageable.
A pigeon landed on her right shoulder, and she turned and smiled. Right there, so near her, lay one of her true friends. She knew she belonged there, with them.
September 11th, 2001, NYC
It was 8:00AM on the dot when she made it to the entrance of the North Tower, whose stature always felt imposing. Before that, she’d made it past tourists, fountains, security checks, and many fluttering pigeons. She pushed the heavy door open to the main lobby: vast, high-ceilinged, freshly brewed coffee always in the corner. She quickly recognized Polly’s signature auburn bun, and approached her. After some catching up, Polly kindly offered to walk her up to the elevator and ledges.
By 8:10, she had made it to her favorite ledge and made herself comfortable between nests, her legs dangling off into the air, which smelled of feathers and freedom.
Pigeons flew above and below her, and she felt covered, protected. She loved this feeling.
At 8:32, she left the pigeons to care for their young, made her way back down to the floor, and joined the relatively short line at the South Tower. Martha, the lady with salt-and-pepper hair who sold tickets, gave her one discounted to $5, “for being so polite to us,” with a slight smile. She smiled back and stepped into the back of the elevator to head up to the ceiling, waving and nodding to staff that recognized her. The elevators ran quickly and smoothly, and she was at floor 107 within the minute, with rooftop access to the 110th.
Precisely at 8:41, she stood nearly alone on the roof, filled with pleasure at the openness and fresh air, with an occasional bird swooping past or landing at her feet. This feeling, this ecstasy of being surrounded by only those who never judged and the panoramic view of New York spread around her, Lady Liberty looming in the distance, was what she lived for.
Right as the clock struck 8:46AM, a terrible screaming emerged from the North Tower, followed by smoke and fire from the explosion of an airplane colliding directly with it. Seventeen minutes after this, another plane crashed into the South Tower, shaking the foundation. People around her screamed, but she didn’t.
For around fifty minutes after this, she watched people scream, cry, pray, and slowly accept what was happening. Four minutes later, the metal structure of the building groaned and tilted, and two minutes later, at 9:59AM, the South World Trade Center collapsed. She closed her eyes with an accepting peace and mentally said goodbye to her mother, her father, her little brother, and to the birds.
And for the first time in her fifteen years of living, the Pigeon Girl spread her wings and flew up to the sky with the wings of her predecessors guiding her.
Author’s Note
The point of this story is meant to be that we remember the people that suffered on 9/11 by their deaths, but they weren’t just their deaths. They were their lives. Any given person up there could have been some lonely girl who befriended a janitor and really liked pigeons. She could have had a little brother, and a businessman father and a nurse for a mother (I know it doesn’t make it into the story but I still imagined it like that), she could have been up there just to feel the wind on her face and through her hair. She might have been a good student or a bad one, a popular kid or an ostracized one, kind or mean, and all that matters just as much, if not more, than the fact that her life was cut short on that fateful day.
About Author
Eva Naiman is a writer from the United States who has been writing since she was 10. She writes everything from flash fiction to novels and is currently dedicating myself to one main project. She also enjoys sketching, and has been drawing since I was 9. She runs track, studies hard, and enjoys catching bugs and lizards.
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