I was at work in a photo laboratory, producing peoples "art," or at least, in the main, their mundane holiday photographs.

The first we new about it all was from a text message, to my assistant, from her friend in New York.
"a plane has hit one of the twin towers‚"
That was the only info we got, and we thought it must have been an accident, perhaps a light aircraft gone off course.

So, we switched on the radio, and listened to the story unfold.
As time went by the story got more and more shocking, and my assistant remembered that one of her friends worked opposite the twin towers.

With the news telling us that the towers had gone down, we were all shocked.

Due to us listening to the news, the lab machines became still, customers came in, expecting their precious snaps, a couple got enraged that their photos weren't on time.
I told them that the twin towers had just had a plane fly into them, they shut up quick, they'd been there the week before and some of their snaps were of the towers.

I closed the lab and we carried on listening to the radio.

The customers waited and queued, all to be told that some events were bigger and more incredible than their holiday photos, and to come back in the morning.

I left work and went home to see the appalling images on TV, and I wished I didn't own a television.

Scott Grant