There are posters—posters everywhere of people who never came home that day. The Fulton Street station, where I would normally get off, is closed indefinitely, and now, I have to get off a stop early at City Hall.
Before it happened, I often intentionally got off the subway at City Hall to enjoy the longer walk. I would walk down Park Row and stop in at J&R Music to peruse the jazz CDs, or I would head over to the East River and walk down South Street to be near the water.
Now this extra walk is torture. The posters—the posters break my heart. With each poster, I feel the longing of the loved ones—the ones who are left behind—the ones who refuse to believe that their husbands/wives/sons/daughters/friends/aunts/uncles/cousins are already dead. No matter how happy I am when I get off the subway, the walk never fails to devastate me. My heart drops into the base of my pelvis, my lungs become water-logged with sorrow, and I fight for air between my audible sobs.
I cannot handle their pain.
On that day—the day when it happened—we pulled people in off the streets as they fled from the crumbling towers. Our ashram house—a small brownstone with a meditation hall in the basement, a gathering area on the ground floor, and a handful of apartments above—served as a temporary sanctuary for those running east, away from the destruction. We offered them a place to catch their breath, towels to wipe off their ash-covered bodies, water to quench their thirst, and food to ground them until everyone, including ourselves, were evacuated.
Now, whenever I return home to our house—the spiritual center of our community—I immediately go into the meditation hall. I shiver as I enter, and I sit down nervously to pray. I feel the lost spirits of those who died congregated in that room, confused about what happened to them, wondering where they are. Just as the people who had survived flocked to our center to find refuge that day, so had those who died.
I try to breathe deeply while I pray that the spirits in the room realize they are already dead and that it is time for them to move on. I pray that the people desperately looking for their loved ones accept the fact of their death and find some form of solace. My body wants desperately to run from the room, but my heart keeps me there, praying for the souls of those both living and dead. I wonder if there is some way I can help the spirits and those they left behind, but I do not know who any of these disembodied beings surrounding me are.
I sigh, get up, and leave.
___
I am getting out at City Hall station, steeling myself for the long, painful walk again. As I ascend from the underground, I am determined to keep my eyes fixed ahead of me. If my eyes do not stray, I will not see a poster.
It doesn’t work.
Waiting for the light to change, I examine the poster on the pole before me. There is something about this poster: “Please help us find our friend, Charlotte Brown, last seen on 9/11 at approximately 8am.” That name sounds familiar, but how do I know it? I gaze at the picture, trying to remember.
The light changes, and I cross the street, resolving to stare at the ground, instead, so as not to be distracted by another poster.
On that day—the day when it happened—I woke up with a knot in my stomach. I felt a sense of foreboding and tried to hide under my covers and pretend the day was not happening. Like so many others that day who decided to call in sick or who missed their train or mysteriously forgot to set their alarms, my body must have been trying to warn me. I ignored my intuition, however, and dragged myself out of bed—despite my leaden and uncooperative legs—and forced myself to get up and get ready to go to work.
I manage to make it the rest of the way home without looking at another poster. Relieved, I head straight to the basement to meditate. My chest constricts, and I feel pounding in my ears. It is then that I remember my fear of being surrounded by the dead.
I cannot help but stay, however. Our mutual pain holds me here. How will I ever relinquish this sorrow if I cannot hand it over to the divine? How can I help these lost souls if I do not pray for them?
I feel their cold chill surrounding me and that familiar clench in my gut. Are they trying to speak to me? I try to surrender to it all, but panic keeps me from allowing it. What are they saying? I close my eyes to block them out, but it is not my eyes that see them. I reopen my eyes, and the scene does not change.
I sigh, get up, and leave.
___
The posters—the posters are even in the subway station now. I no longer have time to brace myself before rising onto the street; they assault me the moment I step off the train. The grief that hits me makes me feel like I’m trudging through mud trying to climb the subway stairs. What is even up there for me?
There is nothing up there except more posters. More posters and that awful smell.
They say it is the burning buildings and plastic from the computers that are polluting the air, but all I can think is that it’s the stench of smoldering, rotting bodies. I am breathing them in, becoming one with them, but I do not want to.
On that day—the day when it happened—I forced myself to leave the house and walk down John Street toward the Fulton Street station. I had just about reached Nassau Street when I heard a high-pitched roar coming from the sky above me. Instinctively, I crouched down and covered my head. There was a sonorous boom. Everyone surrounding me on the street froze in a bewildered silence. Suddenly, it rained papers—not tiny cut up pieces of paper like a ticker-tape parade, but whole pieces of paper with graphs and charts and words on them. My only thought was ‘there is a disturbance in the force.’ I stood there for an indeterminate amount of time, wondering what I should do. Wondering what had happened.
I enter the meditation hall, but it is no solace. The air is thick with a hollow chill—could there be even more disembodied beings in here than there were before? They are vibrating, creating an unintelligible murmur disturbing to my ears. I wish I could just block them out—that I could think straight.
I try chanting ‘OM,’ but my voice is wispy and thin. My voice, meant to drown them out, only amplifies them. My ears ache with their deafening hum. Have they been trying to speak to me this whole time?
I remember I am supposed to be helping them and start focusing on breathing in their suffering, while breathing out compassion.
Honestly, I just want them to go away.
But they are closing in on me.
“Charlotte...”
I can make out the word now.
“Charlotte…”
That name… somehow, I know it.
“Charlotte...”
The woman from the poster! Do they know her? Maybe Charlotte is one of the spirits in the room. Am I supposed to bring a message to her family? Maybe this is finally my opportunity to help. For once, I feel a bit excited, and I listen and wait.
Nothing happens.
I sigh, get up, and leave.
___
I am exiting City Hall station.
Again.
I drag myself up the stairs. How much longer must I endure this? Will these people ever accept their loved ones’ deaths and finally take these posters down? I have given up avoiding the posters, hoping instead that their ubiquity will eventually numb me to them.
I am stuck. The same light, the same face, the same pole. Charlotte Brown. I examine her photo.
She does look familiar… something about that hair and that face. I feel like I’ve seen them before—like I’ve touched them before. What were those spirits trying to tell me? I miss the light change—maybe several times. How long have I been standing here in front of Charlotte Brown’s poster? I have got to get away.
The light is red again. There is an erratic beating in my chest. My throat constricts. I need to get back to the meditation hall.
On that day—the day when it happened—I stood there on the corner of John and Nassau Streets, surrounded by papers, wondering what I should do. Should I go home and crawl back into bed like every cell of my being had wanted me to do that morning? Or, should I go to work and appease my boss, who was always mad at me for being late? If I went home, or even if I remained there, unmoving, much longer, I would certainly be in trouble yet again.
I looked up at the twin towers and suddenly realized there were people in there, suffering and needing help. Without thinking, I broke into a run toward the towers. As I got closer, I looked up and saw an enormous plane sticking out of a giant hole in one of the towers. I stopped, my mouth agape, when that high-pitched screech happened again. I fell to the ground with my arms over my head, and…
I am at home in the meditation hall. How did I get here again? Wasn’t I just standing waiting for the light to turn green? Or, wait, was I just at the towers? I look around—disoriented, confused. The beings in the meditation hall are more viscous. I feel them in every cell of my being. I start to make out semblances of faces—a blurry nose, an eyebrow, a mouth.
They approach me.
“Charlotte…”
They are speaking of the woman in the poster again. I wish I could figure out what they want me to do. They come closer, yet I feel eerily calm. I sit down to meditate. Maybe they will join me.
“Charlotte…”
They reach out to me. Are they… smiling?
“Charlotte…”
Wait, do they mean me? They enclose me, and I feel myself dissolving. At first I resist. Then I think back to that day—the day when it happened.
Wait, what happened again?
“Charlotte…”
The realization slowly permeates me.
I give in to the feeling of dissolution.
My heart lifts to the sky.
My lungs inflate with joy.
I sigh,
get up,
and leave…
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