September 9, 2001

I was on a 23 hour bus ride from Rize Turkey to Istanbul on September 9 2001. My shiny new MP3 player was busted and the cassette Walkman I borrowed from a cousin was drained within the first hour after departure. I was seated at the very back and centre of the bus so I could see everyone's business in front of me.

The buses in Turkey have stewards working the aisles just like on airplanes and I was able to observe the hard work they put in. I wasn't sure if I would rather work with them instead of sitting for 23 hours. It was also interesting to realize that the entire trip was captained by the same driver who tried his best to exhale his cigarette smoke out of his driver's side window. He made an apologetic statement claiming that despite the smoking ban it was surely better for everyone's sake that he smoke to keep from falling asleep.


People started drifting off and after several hours of numbing boredom I was mercifully able to doze in and out for short stretches. The first few hours seemed like days and I fell into a surreal haze. The short naps made the trip seem even longer and during one of these I had one of those hyper real and frightening dreams. I was in a tall building in New York. We heard a tremendous noise and looked out the window as everything started shaking. While we wondered aloud if it was an earthquake the building directly across from us just crumbled before our eyes and disappeared to the street below.

I immediately knew what was about to happen and to our horror the walls around us started to cave in and everything went dark. I instantly knew that we weren't going to make it out of there alive. I heard a ringing bell and a very distant yet familiar bittersweet feeling started to come over me. As our building started to fall down I was transported back to recess break in my grade 4 schoolyard.


Children can play as hard as any adult can work and during some of those games we would become so entirely immersed that we would completely forget where we were, what time it was or that it would ever have to end. Only when the bell rang were we brought back to the reality that we had left completely behind. Only then were we reminded that it all had to end and only then did we experience that bittersweet feeling within which one simultaneously appreciates the value of the game just as the tragic realization of its ending sets in.