51 When the Planes Stopped Flying by Grace Thornsbury My parents tell me that the world was suddenly quiet after 9/11 because the planes stopped flying. It was an absence they never would have noticed otherwise; something they had always known had vanished. There was screaming happening somewhere, the sound of buildings creaking, sirens calling. A piece of tape torn, a MISSING poster stuck to a glass window. Drawers and closet doors opening, suitcases hastily packed and zipped, their wheels thumping down flights of stairs. But in a little townhouse in Maryland, my parents were looking at the sky and hearing it empty. Some generations never heard planes. But for a while now, each generation has. Many of them have heard planes and felt fear. But my parents were not hearing them, and they were afraid. I see my mom with the TV on all morning, her one-year-old son napping, while she waits for my dad to call her from his office. He worked an hour from the Pentagon, so she went to pick him up. I don’t know what he had on the radio, whether his windows
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