Policing Anxiety

The effect of the western world's response to terrorism.

Ghostly Manhattan skyline without its twin towers, hardened New Yorkers nod as they pass each day, legions of outsiders turn up each day as if to confirm that the impossible is real. No crass commercialism is allowed here - not a hawker to be seen.  In small huddles, people talk, stare, grasp the dimensions of empty space. NYFD unit across the street from the chasm, gleaming trucks parked ready to sprint out into the void again, bronzed images of comrades who fell that day are welded to the station house wall, a cross from the charred metal infrastructure pierces upwards. There is the gaping hole where the subway used to run underneath the great building. The giant dust clouds, that still haunt the mind, have left a permanent, musty film. Five years later dust still permeates the consciousness, the smell, skin, the eyes. What a nightmare to clear the site? Still they carry on, passionate, diligent construction workers on a mission from God.