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This is a monologue from Co-Op Theatre East's workshop of What to Do In Case You Miss the Rapture, last May.
***
Too Old for Fairy Tales
By Ashley Marinaccio
I’ll never forget the image of those people jumping from
Tower 1 – the falling man, the couple that held hands as they made their final
descent. I was 11 and went to school five blocks north of the towers. During
the evacuation the lunch lady covered by eyes – but even from a mile north – I
swore I saw my parents falling. I yelled “That’s Daddy!” and started running
toward the burning towers. Everything
went blurry and I thought of Ms. Stocky, my Sunday school teacher – who told me
all the Rapture at Sunday school only two days before. I swore this was it – those people jumping
were on their way to being raptured. I broke away from the rest of the shaken sobbing
sixth graders and prayed “Now! Jesus! Now! Rapture them now so they won’t hit
the ground and die.”
This was it. I was experiencing The Rapture because a truly
loving God would have never let all those innocent people hit the ground.
Ms. Luck grabbed me by the wrist covered my face with her
hand and yelled “Don’t look back”. “But Ms. Luck, I have to” I cried, “If I
don’t look now, I may miss mum and dad being raptured. They’ve been waiting for
this moment their entire lives.” I had never seen anyone turn so pale. At the
time I thought it was because we had just run from Chambers to Canal street in
under ten minutes, and that kind of workout would turn anyone pale. Maybe this wasn’t the Rapture after all. Maybe
it was Sodom and Gomorrah and if I look back, I will turn to salt.
My parents were obliterated in the towers. Dad worked in Tower 1 and mum worked in Tower 2. When I imagine their last moments it
involves a surprise trip that lead to Dad being in Tower 2 bringing my mother
roses as an early gift for their anniversary. After 20 years of marriage, I
imagined them grabbing hands and running to the window of 104 to spend eternity
together. By eternity – I don’t mean to suggest that my parents jumped. No,
Jesus grabbed them. He raptured them up. While we watched all those people falling,
my parents were part of the lucky few that were spared the jet fuel, the fire,
the heat, and the collapse. They were taken up… in the rapture that happened on
September 11th, 2001.
For years my sister I would visit ground zero to see the
lights. I dreamt of being sucked up into them – like a vacuum, and taken up
through the clouds to see my parents. I imagined the lights were a vortex that
could teleport me…. No, wait, rapture me up to where mum and dad were waiting.
The lights were the gateway, and if I didn’t get inside them, I’d have to wait
an entire year for my next chance.
In 2004, workers recovered a piece of femur which DNA tests later
connected to my father. It was found amongst dust and stone on the roof of the
Duetshe Bank building a few blocks south. For my family, this 3 ounce piece of
bone provided the closure that they need to move on. For me, it opened the
office door to various psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and an
extended stay at Bellevue after the NYPD pulled me off a ledge.
To this day my mother is listed officially as “missing”. On
those days where the pills don’t have complete control I imagine her in a
business suit and fancy shoes, being raptured up out of tower 2 before anything
could happen. I can see her face and how excited she must have been, knowing
that she was finally going to see Jesus. I think about how happy she would feel
that her husband was with her, by her side always. I dream that one day all of
us will be together again.
But the pills are there to remind me that I’m too old to
believe in fairy tales.
Labels:
9/11,
monologue,
rapture,
september 11,
What To Do Incase You Miss The Rapture