Ground Zero

-Suzanne Berne

About Writer

Suzanne Berne has worked as a journalist and has also published book reviews and personal essays as well as three well-received novels, including The Ghost at the Table (2006) and Lucille (2010). She currently teaches English at Boston College.

 

Summary

In this essay, Suzanne Berne describes her visit to the site of the twin towers of the world trade center.

In a cold and rainy morning in the march, some six months after the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Suzanne Berne went to visit the Ground Zero, where there had been the world trade center before it had collapsed. People of all ages from different countries and states gathered there to pay their respects. They were looking at “nothing”, the absence of the world trade center, which became more powerful afterwards. To an outsider, the place looked like a construction site with the all the necessary things. The work made one curious and hopeful. When one’s eyes were adjusted, one felt as if one had come out into the bright afternoon light from the dark theater. Because of the light, the emptiness began to be visible.

The graveyard was not damaged. So many things were placed on the grave. There were American flags everywhere. An elderly man standing near the writer said that he had seen the place while the towers were being built and also after he towers had collapsed. Thus he had experienced the double absence: one before the tower had been built and the other after the tower had been destroyed. Many people there said that they did not believe so much destruction had taken place. The pictures of destruction on TV and newspaper might have made it difficult for people to visualize emptiness there.

When the writer decides to buy a ticket to see the site clearly and to understand better what she had seen, nobody seems to support her. She wandered here and there and finally she got a ticket in a shop to watch the disaster. From the window of the shop, she could see the pit and the way to reach there. The firefighter there stood in a line for honor guard because the remains of dead body was being carried to the ambulance. Everyone in the dining room stopped eating and stood up to show respect or to see well.

The writer then mixed with other visitors on the viewing platform. People wrote their names or “God Bless America” on the plywood walls. Like the writer, thousands of visitors might have arrived there out of curiosity, or horror, or reverence, or grief. But their visit would fill up the empty place again.