Free Writing - Take 55 (Beyond That Day)

Eight million people in that naked city and thirteen years later, all eighteen seem to have been there. Running up stairs, carrying people to safety and digging in rubble. To me that day was a sad blur, sitting in safety in a Westchester co-op. The following day, I get the call from friends there. I ask if I can give my time. Please, I beg them, let me not feel so helpless. It's a crime scene they explain. A friend visiting, is accepted, but 30 blocks away. Triage during the day, tales and tears at night. My friends, cops, firemen, correction officers, work amidst the horror. Weeks later, one describes. The sights, the sounds, but it's not what gets him. The smell. I see a side, not often seen. I tell him again how much I wish I could have done more. Thirteen years later, with social media has taken over and every second or third friend claims to have been digging in those piles, enduring the horrors, being patriots. I know how their untruths hurt my fine friends. It burns like the smoke they inhaled those days after. I see post after post with those same two words and they don't know anything. They don't know what three, yes three people, have said to me at different occasions. Those two words, emblazoned in our minds, also completing their sentences, but with such powerful meaning.

I know I can't. I would give everything I have, if I could erase it from my memory. I wake up at night smelling the death, seeing buckets of rubble with hands, feet and chunks of flesh. Wallets, keys and pieces of jewelry. I wish it would all go away, but I know it won't. I know, try as I may, I will....Never Forget.