For a moment, the Wall seems to flicker in the late afternoon fog. Eustace Horatio Nolan stops a short distance away along the Mall. He squints his eyes and pulls his overcoat tighter against the cold, humid wind.
Must be my imagination, he thinks, as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall clearly stands where it always has, off to the right of the Lincoln Memorial. He clears his throat and continues trudging along the path to the Wall. In his pocket, he fingers the small envelope that contains the quarter he intends to leave for his friend, the quarter he has left every year on this date since the Wall was built in 1982.
He arrives at the Wall and enters the pathway from the west side, slowly descending into the rift as the designer had intended. As he walks, he traces his hand along the Wall. He has to pull away a few times and walk around other people staring at the names. At one point, he softly treads around a kneeling man who quietly weeps.
Eustace fingers his quarter again, and takes note of some of the other offerings left at the Wall: a small American flag; a fuzzy white teddy bear wearing a red bow; a bouquet of flowers; a photograph of men his age, in their early fifties--
"It swallows you up," Eustace hears. He stops short, and turns to look at the man who just spoke.
"Say that again?"
The man has dark hair, and he fiddles with his glasses. He appears to be in his late twenties. "I was just talking to my wife about the Wall." He points towards one end, where the Wall begins, built into the earth low to the ground. "It starts low and by the time you get here--" He points upward, indicating the height of the Wall at the center, more than ten feet above the walkway. "It swallows you up."
"I like it," says the man's wife. "It's quiet, serene."
"Calm," Eustace suggests, although he doesn't feel that way. He can't shake the image of the Wall swallowing people up. It disturbs him.
"Yeah," the woman says. "Calm." She offers her hand. "I'm Shari Ledowitz. This is my husband, Andy."
Eustace shakes their hands in turn. "Eustace Nolan," he says, as other people walk slowly past. "I didn't mean to spy on you."
"No, it's okay," Andy says. "I imagine people tend to pay more attention to others here."
)
