Ground Zero January 2005

She stood a ghostlike silhouette before the gray cold safety fence. A stunned frozen statue choking back tears. Below the street where she stood lay nothing special to speak of. A hole splattered with pot holes and twisted metal. Sand, and gravel, and earth rending machines. But there was something else. A feeling of something more...something important...important and sad.
The emptiness in front of her was echoed in the empty sky here, where metal and glass and man had once stood high. She’d never expected to be this touched. This moved. Never thought those souls lost through fire and tumbling and the crushing power of gravity would have remained on this hallowed ground waiting for the crowds. Waiting to touch. Waiting to remind.
He was surprised by the coldness in his heart. He’d thought he’d have felt it a little bit more. But instead, it was her shoulders bent to the pavement that had had an affect. It was then he’d remembered. Remembered the flames. Remembered the horror. Remembered the sadness. And now, only now, remembered the anger. The searing anger. It came, a hot poker through his soul. Burning through the callous of time. Bringing him, once again, to the moment of the attack.
And in that moment he made a promise.
A promise to her. A promise to himself. And a promise to those whose lives were taken by the evil that lives in man’s soul.
He would never stop. Would never forget. Never let the editors of history rewrite these heroes out of time.
So...
When is the last time you saw the towers fall? The last time you watched as body after body dropped from windows of flame? Saw the posters of the missing on the gates St. Pauls? Watched the dust covered faces emerge from the cloud? Saw the pain on the faces of family and friends? How long has it been? Do you remember it now?