That Bottomless Void
By Nana Dadzie Ghansah
There was an abandoned well in the Ghanaian village I grew up in. The story was that many years ago, a little child fell into and drowned in the well. His body was never recovered.
Fearing the same fate might befall me, my grandparents warned me never to go near it.
The warnings didn’t stop a seven-year-old me from wandering over on a few occasions to that abandoned well and peeking over the short wall that surrounded it. The few times I did it without getting caught, I looked down the depth of that well and was struck by a darkness that seemed endless, even bottomless. It felt like a deep, dark void that threatened to suck one in. I used to wonder if the ghost of the child was still down there, and the thought frightened me more than me falling into the well.
On a weekend in November four years ago, as I stood by and then stared into the pools that make up the 9/11 memorial, memories of that abandoned well in the village I grew up in and that sensation of a void it emanated came flooding back.
For those who haven’t visited it yet, the 9/11 memorial comprises of two large square pools, 192 x 192 ft and 30 ft deep. They are made out of black granite and set into the footprints of the Twin Towers. Water cascades down like a waterfall from the top of each pool and flows into central…
