Void noise

I remember being in a car with my mother and siblings

Driving and the radio was on

My mother screamed at us

SHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

She shouted and we listened

The radio blathered on

My siblings and I tuned it out as if it was static on the radio

Void noise from which our ears would pick up

An empty station

Just as we were empty

Without knowledge of war

Without knowledge of tragedy

We sat in the car quiet as my mother veered off the road and stopped just as many others did

We heard as the buildings smashed into a fiery ball

Depictions of debris and people falling were retold

Over and over again

Over and over again

We heard something

In which

We should have cried

Wept for the others who had died

Yet we laughed and giggled like any other day

Too young to know of the horrors

Of an event too far outside our car

The station went dark and my mother gasped and turned

My siblings and I were laughing and playing

Our ears closed off from the empty station playing void noise