Candles Are Our Weapons

• Kelli Brandis, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2018

We were walking down Wall street when it happened, my world came hurtling down. The ground shook and a deafening sound exploded into my head. “Look at the World Trade Centre!” someone shouted incredulously over the screaming. Smoke filled the sky creating a grey blanket smothering the terror and destruction below. Flames licked the side of the building while around it, the sky rained trash. Papers incongruously floated down like leaves spiralling in autumn, throwing ash into airways, lungs. The stench of the smoke gathered in my nostril, causing me to gasp for air. I turned and pressed my face into my dad’s chest, scrunching my eyes in a vain attempt to block out the world crumbling around me.

“I have to go,” Dad said as he knelt in front of my sister and I before rushing off towards the building billowing smoke.

A tug at my elbow pulled me from my thoughts. “Look it’s your favourite part,” she said smiling forlornly. Each of the fire-fighters raised a flag inch by inch, holding themselves together against the waves of grief that threatened to wash over them. The flags whipped in the wind framed against the dark grey of the mourning sky.

On that day it grew darker as the smoke billowed and as the enormity of the tragedy dawned on people. Increasingly desperate I watched for my Dad to emerge from the endless stream of people that stumbled past, little ants crawling along their paths drawing upon unseen strength. Time sped by then, my thoughts consumed by my Dad, the image of him rushing towards the burning building forever burned into my mind. That night and countless nights after I’d waited up to hear his footsteps down the hallway. I lived for the moment when he’d pop his head around my door and whisper “Goodnight ladybug.” I still want to be his ladybug. But he never came.

I gazed around at the grief-stricken, tear-stained faces of the families of the victims and first responders. As each person lit their candle, we turned our candle into a weapon of war. Many familiar objects had been turned against us by our enemy: airplanes had become missiles, buildings into death-traps, newlyweds and teachers into enforced suicide bombers. We responded, not with missiles or soldiers but with candles. We lit them in mourning.

The wind whipping the flags cleared a patch of blue sky from the melancholic clouds. As the fire-fighters stepped back and saluted the flags a flickering, dancing glow caught my eye and my breath hitched in my throat. The candles were still lit once a year, a symbol of our response, our insistence to never forget. As I turned back to the firefighters a gleeful anticipation filled me for next year. I was thrilled at the thought of my application approval to join the service and that instead of watching from the sideline, I would stand there dressed in the formal firefighting uniform and raise the flag. Indeed, that day was a crucible.