Chapter 16

CHAPTER 1 — BOOK II

 

The Morning the World Arrived

 

(September 2001, Sydney)

 

The television was on without anyone watching it.

 

It had been turned on for company—noise to fill the kitchen while breakfast plates were cleared and bags gathered for school. The volume was low. The images were distant. At first, it looked like an accident.

 

Smoke rose from one of the towers, a single wound in the skyline.

 

Geoffrey stopped moving.

 

“Is that…?” he said, not finishing the sentence.

 

No one answered him. Awan had already reached for the remote, turning the volume up, then down again, as if sound might make the images more comprehensible.

 

The presenter’s voice was careful, then uncertain. Words repeated themselves. The camera angle shifted. The same image returned.

 

Embong stood in the doorway, schoolbag still on his shoulder.

 

“It’s New York,” Geoffrey said.

 

It was not a question.

 

The second plane entered the frame without warning.

 

There was no sound from the room. The impact happened silently, delayed by distance, but unmistakable. Smoke folded into fire. Fire swallowed shape.

 

The presenter stopped speaking.

 

Delima sat down.

 

Geoffrey reached for the phone before anyone suggested it. His hands moved quickly, practiced from years of habit, dialling numbers he knew by heart.

 

Busy.

 

Again.

 

Busy.

 

He tried once more, forcing himself to slow down, to press each digit deliberately.

 

This time, the line rang.

 

“Geoff?” His mother’s voice came through faintly, distorted but real.

 

“I’m here,” he said. “Where are you?”

 

There was noise behind her—movement, voices, something heavy striking something else.

 

“Your father and I—” Elaine began. She stopped, then tried again. “We’re together.”

 

“Get out,” Geoffrey said. “Please. Just get out.”

 

“We’re trying,” she said. Her voice steadied, deliberately calm. “Listen to me.”

 

The line crackled.

 

“We love you,” she said. “No matter what happens.”

 

The connection dropped.

 

Geoffrey stared at the phone.

 

He dialled again. And again. The calls did not connect.

 

Behind him, the television resumed sound. Sirens layered over sirens. Words arrived too quickly to mean anything.

 

Awan stepped closer, resting a hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder—not gripping, not guiding. Just there.

 

Embong had not moved. He stood exactly where he was, eyes fixed on Geoffrey rather than the screen.

 

School did not happen that day.

 

No one said so outright. It simply became obvious. Bags were set down. Shoes left by the door.

 

News filled the hours without filling the space.

 

By afternoon, the language hardened. Speculation turned into accusation. Explanations were offered too soon, too loudly. Names were repeated without context.

 

Geoffrey did not absorb any of it.

 

He sat on the edge of his bed, phone in his hand, staring at nothing. Time stretched and contracted unpredictably, minutes passing like hours, hours collapsing into moments.

 

Embong sat nearby, not speaking.

 

When someone knocked on the door, Embong did not turn his head. Geoffrey did.

 

“It’s just us,” Delima said softly.

 

That night, the house did not sleep.

 

Later, in the days that followed, the facts assembled themselves with bureaucratic precision. The towers collapsed. Survivors were counted. Names were listed. Then removed. Then confirmed.

 

The services were held in the United States.

 

Geoffrey did not travel back. He watched a recording later, alone, the sound turned low. He did not recognise most of the faces. When it ended, he closed the laptop and went downstairs, where dinner was already waiting.

 

Outside the house, the world changed its tone.

 

People spoke more carefully at first, then less so. Jokes surfaced where they did not belong. Comments sharpened. A line was drawn in conversations Geoffrey had not agreed to join.

 

Once, at school, someone laughed and said something they thought was clever.

 

“Embong bin Laden,” they joked.

 

The words landed before Geoffrey had time to think.

 

“Don’t,” he said.

 

The laughter stalled.

 

“Say that again,” Geoffrey continued, flat and unmistakable, “and you’ll have a problem.”

 

No one did.

 

Embong said nothing. He did not thank Geoffrey. That evening, he passed Geoffrey a glass of water without being asked and sat beside him until the silence eased.

 

Grief did not arrive all at once.

 

It came in fragments: the smell of coffee in the morning, the sound of keys at the door that did not follow, a habit reaching for something that was no longer there. Some days were functional. Others were not.

 

One evening, standing in the hallway between rooms that had changed their meaning, Geoffrey stopped moving altogether.

 

Embong saw it.

 

He crossed the space without hesitation and wrapped his arms around Geoffrey, holding him firmly, without words, without asking whether it was welcome. Geoffrey leaned into it, suddenly and completely.

 

For the first time since the morning the world arrived, he cried.

 

Later, when the house was quiet again, Geoffrey said, “I don’t want to lose you too.”

 

“You won’t,” Embong replied.

 

It was not reassurance.
It was fact.

 

The world continued to speak loudly after that day—about security, about blame, about fear.

 

Inside the house, things were quieter.

 

And because they were, Geoffrey survived the first night. Then the second. Then the third.

 

The world had arrived uninvited.

 

But it had not taken everything.

 

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