Life in New York is slowly returning to something approaching normal. Even in the middle of this tragedy, I still have to do my laundry. In an effort to get my mind off things—because they don't need any more volunteers and the blood banks are filled—I went to karate class last night, and then insisted on touring the East Village with my friend Jeff. At a bodega on 1st Avenue, I bought an American flag, which I flew from the breast pocket of my leather jacket. Outside Jeff's apartment, I passed a few minutes with some police officers who were guarding the deserted mosque on 9th Street. New York's Finest have been working twelve- or thirteen-hour shifts. And all I could do was offer to get them some coffee.

Every bus stop, every lamp post, and every hospital entrance is plastered with handmade flyers, posted by desperately searching fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Every time I see a Xeroxed photo of one of the missing innocently holding their infant child or embracing their fiancée, I feel like crying. Now I know how the residents of Oklahoma City, of Columbine, of any of a thousand other places felt. We've all known the feeling of watching the news and saying, "Isn't that awful?" while on our way to the fridge for another Amstel Lite. Trust me: It's not real until the view out the window is an Old Testament sight of a city in flames, of fire falling from the sky like the wrath of God. Whether or not the people responsible saw the world as a black-and-white struggle of good against evil, they at least managed to give us a foretaste of the Apocalypse.

Jeff suggested that we head over to Union Square Park, where there was a candlelight vigil. Impromptu wakes have sprung up all over the city, but the famous stairs at 14th street have become a makeshift memorial, as well as a focus for NYU students, would-be demagogues, and New York's radical community. Bearded guys in faux Mayan blankets and short, angry college girls held signs saying, "Arabs Are Not Our Enemies" and "Violence Begets Violence." Other people were shouting them down, screaming for blood. Everyone is an expert: Media saturation has made this the most informed generation in history. Even in the midst of the horror, we critique it as if it was just one more thing on TV.

We New Yorkers live in a city where you can hear fifteen different languages in the course of a three-block walk, so we're pretty understanding of the complexities of other cultures. No one, except for one guy, who had been digging up body parts all day, was advocating that we carpet-bomb anyplace (and for some reason, he thought we should nuke Turkey and kept shouting about how we're going to go down fighting). Most people at the park-black or white, straight or gay, American or foreigners-agreed that this was the work of a relatively few criminals, that wholesale killing of Afghanis and Iraqis is not the answer. While we certainly need to bring the bastards to justice, the real solution is to transform those countries into places where no one would want to harm America-and that means schools, clean water, and the other things that make people feel that there's more to life than steering a jetliner into a building. No one was advocating that we put all Arab-Americans into internment camps, either. It's gratifying to know that we've grown as a people since the last war.

Those were the hawks. The doves were another story. One short, cute girl with a lip ring was pretty much saying that we brought this upon ourselves with our foreign policy, which values dollars over human lives, and is willing to leave the most heinous criminals in charge so long as the oil keeps flowing-which is, I have to give her, true in part. On the other hand, she held that because our policies in the Middle East amount to imperialism, that any retribution would be more of the same, and that our support of Israel over the Palestinian people is utterly unjust. That was about as much of the platform that I could make out: they didn't have much of a coherent statement of purpose.

"Do you realize that you are defending a culture in which you, as a woman would have no rights?" I asked her. "And do you even know any Israelis? They're not butchers, you know. They're sick of the war."

She didn't have much of an answer for that.

As a parenthetical note, Thursday night, I went to see my mother and grandparents in Queens, to let them know that I'm still alive. We went for Chinese food, like we always do, but I lost my appetite listening to my grandmother's blandishments that this was no World War II. My mother couldn't see why I've been so upset, since no one I'm close to was killed. Then again, they didn't see the fire and brimstone over lower Manhattan. And my grandmother wasn't in the war. My grandfather, who lost two-thirds of his unit flying supply planes over the Himalayas, was silent.

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