Sometimes I lie awake at night, not haunted by what happened on 9/11—but by what didn’t happen… to me.
I wish I’d been on Flight 93. That’s right. Not because I want to die a hero. No. I want to live as a hero. I want to survive just long enough to get a book deal, a Netflix series, and a Shabbos table full of emotionally available women in long skirts who say, “Tell us again, Luke—how you stopped the jihadis with a plastic fork and your knowledge of Isaiah.”
People say, “That’s so narcissistic.” No, no, no—it’s aspirational. I’m not trying to be the center of attention. I just want to be the guy who stands up, claps his hands, and yells, “Men, follow me!” Except instead of a football team, it’s three insurance salesmen and a rabbi from Teaneck.
I imagine myself charging the cockpit—not with strength, but strategy. I’d say something like, “Brothers, we are dust and ashes, but not today.” And they'd follow me. Because they'd sense I had content. They’d think: this man probably has a YouTube channel.
I’d die, obviously. But right before the plane hit the ground, I’d lock eyes with the hijacker and say, “You messed with the wrong convert.”
Then cut to black.
And when the authorities go through the wreckage, they find my torn kippah, my copy of The Denial of Death, and a handwritten note that says, “I died as I lived—uninvited, over-intellectualizing, and still hoping for a Shabbos invite.”
And here’s the thing: they’d put me on postage stamps. There’d be a park in Beverly Hills with my name on it and a plaque that says: Luke Ford, He Tried Really Hard to Be Good.
That’s all I want.
I don’t need fame. I need redemption—and maybe some posthumous kavod from women who previously said I was “emotionally destabilizing.”
People say, “You’re delusional.” Maybe. But I’m just trying to build my own hero system. Becker would understand. I want to live forever—or at least get mentioned in a Dennis Prager column.
Is that too much to ask?
