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11:30 p.m., Thursday, October 4, 2001

Most of us have seen "bad" parts in cities where dilapidated, burnt-out buildings balance precariously on the earth. We have also watched movies about history, with footage of fascinating ruins, their jagged edges creating shapes that illustrate antiquity and annihilation.

Tonight, as I walked closer to the World Trade Center site than I have been allowed before, the incongruous combination of these two types of buildings stood before me. As if for cinematic effect, a continuous stream of volcanic white smoke enveloped the buildings' edges as it spewed from the center of what was once the grand plaza of the Center. A short piece of one of the towers remained, a skeletal outline resembling a small, rectangular checkerboard with the spaces cut out, an extra piece harshly attached to the top and partially knocked away. Just to the left stood another piece of what was once a building, splintered at its middle as if two sticks had been violently thrust together and stuck, vertical, into the ground. Below, among, in-between, through and around, huge mounds of rubble served almost to support what little remains standing. On nearby structures, windows and debris hung like moss from trees, limp and tired with nowhere to go.

Among it all, a single, bright yellow crane visibly struggled to gingerly pick through the masses, seemingly one clump at a time. If one was not aware of the violence that created this devastation, it would be unthinkable that packs of armed police and National Guard soldiers guarded such ostensibly useless ruins.

I watched the crane lift its meager load, the smoke rise unceremoniously into the already fouled air, and the soldiers pace in front of a fence, as members of the small crowd around me gawked with horror and sadness. A middle-aged man, eyes drooped with sorrow, crossed himself; two blonde women, weeping, hugged each other, turned and walked away; a young couple that had been chatting contentedly fell silent and stood motionless.

An American flag flapped atop a vehicle parked behind the military barricade, defying the destruction behind it. Attached to a fence was another, smaller flag, next to a sign reading "Payback is a bitch." I thought of the irony of that sign -- I'm certain the terrorists considered their attacks payback to us, as they plowed into the towers -- and silently wished that the perpetrators will soon learn that lesson.