| A long time passes before I bother to lift myself from the wreckage. I must be alive after all. Somehow. I pick my way down the small mountain of rubble, ignoring the people who were searching for survivors. As dearly as I appreciate their effort, they should go home. Everyone else is dead. I am probably the only survivor. I walk amongst the hastily-constructed tents, peering into each one. Sometimes I join the people at the tables, wondering if they are too busy to notice me or just think I�m a volunteer. I find someone with a digital watch who has the date on the timepiece�s face and am surprised by what I see. It has been three days since it happened. Thinking it may be a malfunction, I find other people with digital watches. The dates concur. Thoroughly confused, I wander off to find one of those day-by-day calendars to see what that says. I come upon one of the many medical tents. Dozens of EMTs and firefighters and police officers covered in dust and soot and looking as though they haven�t slept for days are entering, carrying pieces of peoples� bodies. Arms. Legs. Fingers. Heads. Bloody and dirty. Crushed and flattened. They bring them in anyway. I turn away and enter another tent. This one has victims in it who are mostly intact. It takes me a while to realize that my family and friends are there, gathered around a far corner of the tent. Curious, I move to where they are and try to speak to them. � What�s going on?� When I get no answer, I look past them. I freeze. No . . . I . . . It . . . it isn�t possible . . . . . . Is it . . .? I . . . I�m not dead . . . . . . Am I . . .? I look down at myself. I look real . . . One of the doctors there was speaking to them. She looks as though she hadn�t slept for days either. My brother interrupts her. He didn�t want to hear medical terms. � Did she suffer?� The doctor smiles sadly. � I honestly can�t say for sure, but I can say what I found.� At his nod, she continues. � She was found near the top. Many large pieces of the walls fell on her. Her body, to put it lightly, shattered almost immediately. With that information I can�t say for sure that she felt nothing, but the chances that she died too abruptly to feel anything are very high. So no, she probably didn�t suffer.� He turns away, apparently relieved. � . . . Thank you.� I touch his cheek, but he doesn�t respond. I don�t understand. Am I really dead? This isn�t merely some bad joke? I leave and check through the other tents. People are sobbing over the dead. Men, women, children . . . The young, the old . . . Punks, jocks, gangs . . . People from all races . . . From all ethnicities . . . I find a tent that holds a TV and stand just outside, watching it. The Pentagon was hit too. And a plane crash in Pennsylvania that was connected to this. They say Osama Bin Laden orchestrated everything. President George W. Bush assures everyone that the culprits will be found and the proper action taken. Too much . . . Too much death . . . Now the news people are talking about �Ground Zero� and I wonder what they mean, wonder what place they speak of. I see a scene of rescue officials working with debris, pulling it away and to the side. I realize. What I�m seeing . . . That�s here . . . Right now . . . At this moment . . . �Ground Zero�. I see the devastation. No one could survive that. No one . . . Not even me. I step away from the tent and return to the mounds of rubble that used to be the majestic symbol of the world�s prosperity. I can see that things will go downhill for a while. But they will pick up again. America always finds a way to pull out of trouble. <--Back Continue--> |