Rise

If anybody has reason to yell, it’s her, and she’s screaming into the receiver.
I hold it away from my ear.
It’s 8:30 on a Saturday night and I’m walking down cross streets and alleys, dodging traffic, and it’s cold, the wind whipping down the avenues of block buildings, the chill shaking my veins.
“What do we do?” She asks.
I’m mumbling.
Downtown New York is peaceful at night. People are everywhere, all scurrying by, giving the solemn streets of Wall St. life, passing by the churches that line Broadway, everyone’s head bowed to the cold wind as if solemnly, disappearing down the holes that lead to the subways.
I’m standing in front of Trinity Church. Orange lights glaze the dark brown façade. The steeple rises high.
“You need to calm down,” I’m yelling. “It does nobody good to panic in this situation. And you’re panicking.”
I pause for effect.
“We know how this will end. We know what will happen to him. This isn’t an unfinished story. And you don’t need to be afraid of it.”
She’s crying.
“Can you imagine his life?” She says. “Sitting in that facility, in those padded rooms. He was never crazy. He was never like them, inside that psychiatric ward.”
“But he’s in there now.”
“I don’t even know him anymore. This isn't him. I just wish, wish it would all be the same again. I wish we could start again. This is not how it should end.”
I’ve made my way towards World Trade.
Ground Zero is fenced off and harsh fluorescent construction lights flood the landscape. The sound of heavy machinery echoes through the hollowed out shell of what once used to be the Twin Towers.
And some fifty stories up, a welder works on beams for the new World Trade, the half-finished skeleton of the reborn skyscraper glowing with soft orange lights from within, the strung-up construction lights of workers on the floors inside, building up.
This is where souls must sleep at, and where lives are being reclaimed at.
“Calm down. And understand it will all be better soon. This isn’t the end. This was never supposed to be how it ends.”