About

   The sky was struggling with immense columns of black smoke that were rising to the sky, who could still keep its pure blue. On the West Side highway, thousands of people were making long lines in order to keep their turn for the ferryboat and leave Manhattan. The bridges were filled with people walking or running, trying to leave Manhattan as soon as possible and to take refuge in Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens. From time to time, you could hear explosions caused by gas leaks, that made its stinging smell spread throughout the city. The employees of a hotel were outside on the sidewalk offering people wet towels, with which they would immediately cover their face, avoiding dust and smoke.
   In Liberty Park, in the southern part of Manhattan, more than 1500 wounded were laying on the grass, receiving medical care form doctors, nurses, volunteers and members of the emergency personnel. The less wounded were themselves taking care of the serious wounded ones, trying to calm their pains, and talking to them, telling them everything was going to be all right, and giving phone calls for them to relatives or close ones. In a separate zone corpses of whose destination was not known were laid.
   The mourning choir of the sirens that could be heard till there were accompanied by the moaning of the wounded and the calls of the ones looking for their friends or colleagues. In Central Park, the employees from the buildings took the TVs out on the windows, allowing the passers to know the latest news. In Gramery Park, restaurant “ The Watering Hole” was offering free drinking and food. Thousands of members of the rescuing teams were working constantly, cutting with the soldering machine through the bended metal, removing the wrecks , blocks, and girders of concrete that clashing one into another in an evil way, were blocking access to the ones underneath. A lot of the ones buried under were calling with their cell phones but weren’t able to say their exact place.
   “The city is going to survive, and we will be able to pass over this” said the mayor Rudolph Giuliani. It is going to be very, very hard. We don’t know the pain we will feel when finding the ones disappeared yet, but in this moment we must think of saving the city, of how to survive and how to be strong. The people gathered in Riverfront Park, from Washington, started singing “Amazing Grace”.
    In New York, hundreds of people were sitting in a line at the hospitals, hoping to find their relatives and friends there were wounded in the disaster from World Trade Center. There, in over 150 hospitals, people were working, those unknown ones, that even if exhausted, were trying to make wonders and to bring back to life the mutilated bodies that were but toys in the hands of faith. Everywhere, in the St.Vincent hospital form Greenwich Ville, at the Bellevue medical centre, doctors, nurses and volunteers were still not heading towards home. They were still waiting the arrival of new victims, hoping that the moment in which the ambulances wouldn’t bring any more wounded would be as soon as possible.
   At about 4 pm, abeyance settled. Manhattan was covered with a thick layer of gray dust. Over the city a tough silence settled, as if nuclear winter came. One of the two towers of the World Financial Building, a 47 storey building, was hit by flaming remains of their bigger brothers, was on fire and was burning for several hours. Along the West Side highway a few hundred ambulances were sitting in line, firemen and police cars, waiting for the fall of the building. Everyone knew that this was going to be the denouement, and were waiting for the third catastrophe from the World Trade Center. It was only a matter of time.
   In the end at 5:20 pm, the tower collapsed, causing the same dust cloud as the 110 storey buildings did. And although people that were watching it disappear, were aware of it, floor by floor, they felt as if with it another part of their being was gone.    At about 6 pm, a few fire fighters founds among some smoking ruins the lifeless body of reverend Michael Jones, one of the priests of the Fire fighting department. The face of the vulnerable 68 old man didn’t express neither fear nor pain. On his face, of a good man, a serene expression remained. The firemen took his body to the altar of the St.Peter church in Barclay Street, and after a while took it away from there and bringing it to their unit, across the church. There two dozens of firemen improvised a small funerary service, reciting on a low tone the blessing of St.Francis.
   While dark was approaching, horror and terror that until then had taken over the city, started to pass. Some people were heading to their homes, longing to be close to their loved ones, but there were others that not having families, were going to bars and restaurants, trying to calm down with a drink. The streets were practically empty.
   But as time passed by and people did not return to their homes, their relatives started to loose hope of ever seeing them alive again. At 8:30 pm, president Bush addressed to the nations, speaking form the Oval Room.
   “None of us will ever forget this day, but we will go on protecting liberty, and all that is good and all that is just in our world. Thank you, good night and may God bless America”, said president Bush in the closing of his speech.    With empty sights, with eyes dried out or flowing with tears, with hands held together or left lifeless, with jaws tightly shut or with shivering lips, still or shacking their head continuously, those mourning for the lost ones, were saying in a low voice the prayer for the dead:
   “Eternel rest grant unto them, O Lord
   And let perpetual light shine upon them,
   May their souls, and all the souls of the faithful departed,
   Through the mercy of God,
   Rest in peace. Amen.”