Looking back at emptiness (New York City)

Member Name: flickpugh

Product:	New York City
Date:	04/06/05 (125 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: remembrance

Disadvantages: grotesque souvenir sellers

The little girl behind me is getting more and more exasperated. From
her persistent grumbles I gather that she is cold, bored, hungry, thirsty
and tired. She is of course too young to understand the tragedy of the nothingness she is so disinterested in viewing.

I was due to meet my friends back at the hotel several hours ago, but
I remain rooted to the spot, lost in thought, but not really capable of
thinking. I continue to wander without aim or direction. It is the week before the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center; nearly a year since the day that "changed the world forever". I feel like a trespasser, in a courageous city, still red raw with pain and grief.

About five metres from me, on the other side of the fence, a
crisp packet flutters in the wind. It bumps along haphazardly,
pausing now and again, then continues its windy journey, until
finally stumbling into a fast expanding puddle. I stare at it,
transfixed for a moment. The rain simultaneously stings and refreshes
my skin. It has rained every day of my stay here so far. A wild,
lashing, vengeful rain, showing no mercy to shoppers nor sightseers. I
am soaked to the skin but don't really notice.

The hum of cranes, drills and other machinery fills the
vacuum, drowning out the silence of onlookers. I notice no one
is visible upset, just respectfully silent. As a journalist said shortly
after the event, "the crying is over." Replaced by what I'm not sure -
numbness, `sympathy fatigue', more wars and more deaths?

All around me tourists are snapping, digital cameras and high-tec
camcorders pulled out of mini rucksacks. Grey photographs to be
slotted in albums alongside those of the Statue of Liberty and the
Empire State Building. A couple ask me to take a photograph of them
by the fence. I look at them for a moment, tempted to refuse but
lacking the energy or conviction to do so. I try not to judge, it may
be for their own personal reasons, their own way of remembrance.

I haven't taken any photographs. I certainly
can't imagine why you'd want to actually be in them. Especially not
grinning as if it's the Grand Canon beside you. "Do
you want to see the photographs from our New York trip. Here we are in
Time Square, this is us sitting in Central Park and hey look, this is
me at Ground Zero, do you like the jacket I'm wearing. I got it out
there, a bargain in Bloomingdales.”

I pass a church, awash with tributes and smiling photos
of lost loves in happier days, I start to circle the site, using the muddy tourist track. On the next road, the souvenir stands are going about their daily business. "We
have Ground Zero t-shirts, baseball caps, cigarette lighters," one
vulture shouts over to me. Involuntarily, I take a fleeting glance
and spot model planes and DVD recordings of the events playing on
prominently displayed laptops. Screaming images of the first impact
flicker back and forth.

I wonder, what type of person buys these things? Weren't they played
in our consciousness and nightmares enough in those first
disbelieving weeks? Unforgettable images of fires, smoke planes and
crumbling skyscrapers, shown endlessly on our TV screens and splashed across
every newspaper. As if anyone could forget.

To profit from such a barbaric act in such a callous way is surely a
misuse of freedom, even in "the land of the free". I am both baffled
and furious. I wonder what the reaction back would have been to this
kind of display in the streets of Dunblane or around Ladbroke Grove.
Would we suddenly accept such ghoulish tradesmen if we ever see
something as unforeseeable as this? After an event of such a mammoth
scale, where things no one ever thought possible suddenly become a
frenzied reality, perhaps this act of cold indifference and
inexcusable insensitivity is a normal reaction to senseless tragedy.
I don't know. I'd rather not think about it.

Stifling the urge to run over and sweep every offensive item
onto the sodden pavement, I merely glare fiercely and turn round in a pathetic protest of disgust. I press my cheeks against the cold wire fence for the last time. It is without doubt the saddest empty space I have ever seen and one I will always remember without photographs, a souvenir t-shirt or any other form of memory prop.

Another slightly anxious text messages beeps abruptly on my mobile,
interrupting my thoughts. I have remembered. I have paid my respects. I have seen Western capitalism at its ugliest and been shocked and sickened all over again. It is now time to remember the heroism off that day, the courage of the survivors and to enjoy all the exciting and wonderful things that New York has to offer on this cold, rainy September evening.

Summary: