Today is a busy day, but it's not unlike all the other days. Ma and I sit on a plastic seat in the dark station, waiting for our train. I've been at this station a lot of other times, but I still get scared when I look up at the dark ceiling, at the spots where the floating orange lights don't dare to touch. I think there are demons, or jinns as Ma calls them, creeping in the black and waiting for someone to be alone. I think they like to grab people under the light and snatch them into the dark of the subway station to eat them alive so they can never see their parents again.

I hate losing my mom anywhere, so I grab Ma's hand a little tighter, making sure that she never leaves me to be with the scary jinns that live in the dark spots.

All around us is noise. The people walk by like the little ants on my flower box back home. They're always talking and all their voices combine together to make a new voice, the voice of the city. It makes a hummmmmm like the air conditioner box next to my parents' window. It's always buzzing and it never stops, no matter where I go.

I ask Ma why I always hear it; she just says that it's the city's heartbeat. I have a heartbeat, so the city must be like me or maybe I'm like the city—I don't know. But I don't say a word, because I don't want to disturb its talking. Maybe it's talking to Allah like when I talk to Him in my prayers. Or maybe it's talking to the jinns, telling them to go away from here.

But my favorite noise at the station is the loud roaaaar the trains make when they whoosh by. It hurts my ears, but I love how fast they go, right in front of my eyes. One whizzes by me now and it's so blurry, but it makes me excited to feel its wind on my face. I lose my breath and my hair flies all around me because the big train goes by so fast.

"Come on, Aisha," Ma says.

I listen to the tan-taa that the train doors make when they close behind us. I look up and see a big man who is reading a book with one hand and holding a thing by his other hand. This thing is a silver stick with silver straws and butterflies hanging down from it with strings. Every time the straws hit each other, there's a ting-ring-ting-ting-ting. I really like the ring-ting-ting because it's a new voice. I take a step away from Ma and get the straws to hit each other and make more ring-ting-ting-ting. I keep playing, but Ma notices and she pulls me away.

"I'm so sorry, mister. My daughter is very curious…too much for her own good sometimes," she says.

"No bother" says the man, “kids are like cats. They love wind chimes.” He keeps reading and I keep listening to ring-ting-ting-ting while the train goes crooo-crooo through the dark tunnel.

Wind chimes. So that’s what that thing was called. I know a new word. I like words, because I can name things. And when I can name a thing, I can talk about it with everyone I meet. I can speak and everyone can know what I talk about.

The train is full of light and I know the jinns are hiding up against the ceiling and are waiting for the time to strike everyone inside, but the train goes so fast that they can't catch anybody. We're blurs to them.

Then, tan-taa: the doors open. 

We step off and we go up the stairs. We escape the black spots where the jinns are because we're up in the light of the city. Its hummmmmm is even more loud and, this time, there's the enk-enk of taxis and wermp-wermp of the buses. Today the city is alive and I can feel everybody here, making its voice whole. As Ma leads me through the streets to Baba's shop and our apartment home on Warren Street, I close my eyes and keep listening to it.

I accidentally don't see a small piece of broken sidewalk and almost trip and fall, but Ma's hand keeps me from hitting the sidewalk. I sort of scrape my knee, but it doesn't bleed and I don't cry. I'm eight and three-quarters. I don't do that.

"Aisha! Watch where you're going!" Ma's not happy and she drags me up to walk again.

I look ahead and see that we're on Greenwich Street, a few blocks from where Baba's store is. I hold my head up and look at the tall buildings. Baba says they're skyscrapers and that I can go live in one of them if I work hard. He says that I won't have to be on the ground with him and his shop. I can be at the top with the sun where I can see the city.

"Ma, can I live in one of those towers up there?" I ask, pointing to the twin skyscrapers in front of us. They're the tallest out of all the skyscrapers that I see and I want to live in them so I can look at all of the city from high above.

Ma laughs a little. "Maybe you can, Aisha."

"Can I take you and Baba? Can I also take my friends Claire and Alexandria and Stacey and Jane, too?"

She laughs again. "Yes. You can do whatever you work hard for."

I smile my biggest smile. I will work hard; I will live at the top with my parents and friends. The twin buildings are not so far from our store, so I can always take care of it when Ma and Baba get old and can't walk anymore.

I look up at the towers again and wonder which one I want to be in. Right or left? I'm not sure.

Ma and I finally reach our Warren Street. We see our store and we go in it to find Baba at the counter, moving things around.

"Baba, when I live in those really big buildings that look the same, which tower should I live in? The one on the right or the one on the left?"

He looked at me and smiled. "Well, our Prophet always said for us to eat and write with our right hands. So why don't you live on the tower to the right?"

"Okay!"

I skip down the small aisles, thinking about my apartment house on the right skyscraper or tower or building or whatever they call it.

All around me, there's rck-rck-rck as Baba puts packages of food on a shelf and the city saying hummmmmmmmmmmm.

"Aisha! Let's go to school!" Ma calls from the front of the store.

 I run to her and take my backpack that she's holding. I hold her hand as we go down the street. I look up and don't stop looking at the two skyscrapers. As we get closer to them, they keep getting bigger and bigger. I'll go there one day.

As we walk on Greenwich Street, I see a bird that is flying toward the twin buildings.

But they're not like the pigeons that I see at Central Park. This bird makes an angry whooorsh noise as it's coming near the skyscrapers.

It's not a pigeon. It's an airplane, like the ones that I rode on when I first came to the city when I was four. It's going so fast; it might break itself if it accidentally falls on the ground.

Suddenly, the entire city stops talking. I think the city is surprised like I am. I don't know what's happening. I've never heard it get quiet before. Then:

BOOM.

The plane break; the building does. The plane hits the right tower; the place I wanted to live in.

For a few moments, there isn't even a peep from anyone.                                                

After a minute or two, the city starts talking again. But now, it's screaming.

It's the scream that I hear when someone on the playground gets a scrape, but this scream is even louder because everyone in the city is screaming together.

"Aisha! Aisha!" I hear Ma and she pulls me away from the buildings and back towards Baba's store and we're running and we're going so fast and so is everyone else and all around me people are dropping their things and running and pushing and shoving and they're so scared and I've never seen anything like this and I look at Ma and see her with a face that I've never seen before…she's scared, too.

Crrrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrr. Auuggghhhhhhh.

These noises are new, but they don't sound like the city.

I look back and I try to see what's happening to the building. It's making more loud sounds as if its hurt. People scream all around us and they're not even sad that the building is hurt. I think they're too scared to be sad.

At the same time, angry jinns try to slither out of the building like big bad dragons with sharp claws for hands and they reach to the other the other buildings, but they can't because they're not strong. Maybe the other buildings won't get caught by them and maybe these jinns will go away and not get close to my apartment home.

Ma picks me up and I watch the tower throw up the jinns over her shoulder. They're going near the streets where all of us are running and trying to catch us in their smoke. I start coughing as the jinns try to swallow me and Ma. My mouth has dust in it that tastes icky and bitter. The jinns' bodies are throwing dust everywhere.

I thought they only lived in the dark, but the dark came on its own today.

We finally get to Baba's store on Warren Street, safe from the jinns' smoke, and I see everybody run around to find cover. Baba's staring at the TV behind the counter; he's like a frozen snowman.

"Baba," but he doesn't say anything. I think the city's voice is louder than mine so he can't hear.

"Baba!"

"Shhhh! Listen to the TV," he says quietly.

Some people are listening too, so I go behind the counter and grab a stool. I sit and watch and don't say even a little peep. I can't add my voice to the screams; it'll be too loud for other people.

Rring-rring-rring. Someone is always on the phone.

Chash-shing-chash-shing. Now, people with cuts and lots of blood are coming in. They're buying water and bandages.

But I keep my eyes on the TV and the buildings.

I see another plane, but maybe this a bird and I hope this is a bird, but it's like the plane that I saw before, and it's coming from another side of the sky. It's coming for the left tower. Again, the city is silent that you could even hear the mice that hide in the alleys. Then:

Crrrrrrr-rrrrrrr. Crrrrr-rrrrrrr. Crrrrrr-rrrrrr.

That noise…it's never stopping. The city is screaming even louder because it's been broken twice.

Ma runs all over the store. Her hands are covered in red because she's helped a woman with a cut on her forehead.

I run to the back of the store and run up the stairs to our apartment home and then I go to my room and look out my window that has my flowerbox and see both buildings with mean jinns coming out of them and it's like animals that aren't supposed to be in the skyscrapers' bellies are trying really hard to get out and the jinns try to grab up the other buildings into their smoke bodies while their red and orange fire eyes creep out from the teeny windows and they're everywhere at places where something is burning and I can see the jinns getting close and if there's no light soon, they might catch the buildings and the people on the streets and eat them alive.

Broooohm, broooohm, broooohm. Small pieces start falling off the towers.

But there's another silence.

I don't know what's about to happen, but my heart's beating faster and faster. What are the jinns doing? Haven't they caused enough trouble today?

I think they're eating up the entire left building, because it's top part is falling and knocking down all the bottom parts.

The city doesn't say anything. Then:

Broooooooosshh-booooooom.

I think the left building falls all the way to the ground, because I don't see it next to the right building.

I try to watch out for the jinns and I'm really scared if they come near my house or our store and eat it up. They can't take my apartment home. But I can't do anything to protect my home and the towers that I wanted to live in. The left one is already gone and the right one will go, too. I know because the jinns are eating it up like they did the left building.

Why is this happening?

I want to ask Ma and Baba, but they're too busy and they make me more scared by how they're acting.

I can't hear the city anymore; it's not making its normal noises.

I don't want to hear the city anymore; it's making my head hurt.

I run to a corner in my room and turn my back to the city. I cry so I won't have to hear it anymore. I cry and cry and cry and cry and I keep getting louder and louder and louder and louder until I am louder than the city.

Did I make Allah mad? I try to be nice and follow my Ma and Baba and pray and not lie. I pray for the city every night before bed, but why is it being broken? Why did those planes even come here? Everything was so good before I saw them…

But then, I hear taat-taat-taat-crrrsssshhhh on my window.

I wipe my face and go near to see where the noise came from.

There, right over my flowerbox, is a smoky, scary smile, showing sharp fangs and fiery orange-red eyes. The thing has an ugly gray-black body like its brothers and sisters that are near the towers and in the streets. It was night time on Warren Street when there was sunlight a few hours ago. Ma isn't here and I can't grab her hand tighter. The jinn is bringing the dark with it and it is getting ready to eat me alive like the subway people.