9/11 Short Stories

The winds picked up. Out of the west, the dust rolled in. It blocked out the sun, leaving people unaware of what time it was. It was still day out, but the world outside grew darker. It was like the death of the dinosaurs, how the dust from the meteorite had covered the sun and doomed them, but only it was with a different kind of dust and it spelled the death of farmers everywhere. So much of it covered the sky, now, that not a single ray of light could pass through. The dust was no longer single particles kicked up, but an entity that could impenetrate everything. Someone would swear that even while wearing bandanas and rags to peotect themselves, that they had dust collecting at the bottom of their lungs. Because it was everywhere. It even got into the houses. People had to wipe the dust off of chairs before they sat down, or off of old books, or off of pans before the food could be cooked.

Even someone with the right equipment wouldn't be able to stand the storm that had started. The man found himself knocking on the door of an unfamiliar house, looking for a place to stay, just to wait it out. He held his cap in his closed fist, as it would have without a doubt been ripped away from him and claimed by the very tempest itself, had he not. He knocked with the hand that he used to hold his cap. A slow, deep knock. He didn't know the family that lived here. He hadn't trusted men so much since his sister's death and had been distant of them, but hoped that there was one home now. In some way, too, he feared that he might talk to a woman, who's husband may come home and accuse him of flirting with