Confetti.

        That's what it looked like at first, that first instant, before the sky filled with smoke and ash, and the fire and flying people began pouring from high floors of the North Tower. A sky full of confetti. Like a parade.

        John Philip Williams, J.P. Williams, Bachelor of Science in marketing and management, Miami University Class of 2001, 22 years old and convinced of conquering the world, was on a morning break. He'd been listening to an analyst talk about something financial, and now he was taking five. He walked from the 61st-floor conference room to get a cup of coffee.

        What a place, he thought. What a job, training with a global financial firm with the goal of being a financial planner. What an opportunity for a kid from Little Miami High School. What a view.

John Philip Williams escaped the World Trade Center. (Michael Snyder photo)

        From the South Tower, J.P. Williams could see the Statue of Liberty, Long Island, the Atlantic Ocean. “It was a goal come true,” he recalls. It was his second day on the job.

        We've all been told what it was like a year ago today. We weren't there, though. We didn't live it, not the way J.P. Williams did. This is his story, told for the first time. This is how he remembers a morning he'd like to forget, but can't.

        People looked out the window of the 61st floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center and raised their hands to their mouths. They saw the confetti from the other tower, the reams of paper, the mountains of smoke and fire, moving down and around, engulfing them like an avalanche.

        Mr. Williams was talking to someone. He didn't hear the plane hit. He saw the damage, though. He found the staircase. “We're getting out of this place,” he said to someone. He ran and jumped, five stairs at a time, six, seven. He never felt his feet hit the floor. It was 8:45 a.m.

        He thought it was a bomb. Someone had driven a truck bearing explosives into the Trade Center in '94. He remembered that. He ran down the stairs as fast as he could.

        He heard the building's intercom: “Everything is under control. Remain calm.”

        He ran. Down the narrow escape stairway, 50th floor, 40th, the floor numbers painted on the doors. Twelve steps to a landing, turn the corner, 12 more steps. Twenty-four steps per floor. He made it to the 22nd floor when the second plane hit.

        “As big as that building was, it was shaking like Jell-O,” he says.

        The panic started. People were frozen on the staircase, shaking, unable to move. Everyone praying.

        “If this is my time, take me gracefully,” Williams prayed. “If it's not, put your hand on me and those around me and get us out.”

        He started to smell the jet fuel. The stairwell was filling; he had to walk. Mr. Williams heard screams from the floors high above. The fuel smell was stronger. He covered his mouth and nose with his shirt.

        Praying and moving, 12 steps to a landing, 12 more to another floor, closer to safety. Calm down, they said. Hurry up. My god, help us ...

        From the stairwell into an underground shopping mall, shown the way by police or firefighters. Men in uniform, waving. Out into the street. Ambulances, police sirens, fire trucks. Blood, parts of people. Fire raining. Confetti.

        He walked away quickly — three blocks — before looking back.

        “I wanted to get far enough away I wouldn't panic,” he says. Then he looked back. “Little dots” high up on the North Tower. People, hanging from windows.

        Little dots, falling.

        Walking, with two others he knew. Into a park. Tried his cell phone to call home. Couldn't call out. Kept hearing the phone beep. Messages, from loved ones watching on TV. My god, J.P. is there.

        Walking, praying, a few more blocks. Into a building to a land-line phone.

        One of the three men got through to home. Leaving again, quickly. The tower will fall, J.P. knows. He doesn't know how he knows. He just does.

        The South Tower falls. The street is swallowed whole in smoke and ash. The confetti is on fire. Running again, sprinting. “Adrenaline,” he says.

        “You don't even feel your muscles.”

        He got back to his hotel by 11:30. He was in Cincinnati some 36 hours later. Ten days later, he unpacked his suitcase. The pants he had worn that day were inside. They were as gray as a January fog.

        He thinks about 9-11 still. He wonders why he made it out; he wonders why he thought making a lot of money was so important. He talks every day to his family and friends. He listens to what they have to say. He embraces the world and all that's good about it. He has seen the alternative.

        “I've been happier this past year than I've ever been,” he says.

        He wants to look back years from now and say “That's the best life I was capable of living.” When he does, maybe he'll dip his hand into a pocket or a desk drawer, someplace dark and sacred, and retrieve something that makes him sad. And wise.

        His ID card from the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
       

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