“It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night.”

The September 11 attacks have a devastating effect on the minds of those involved and anyone watching. For people like Keith, who are physically present at the towers, the world changes instantly. Universal constants such as time and space are upended and altered irrecoverably. The attacks create a new world from the ruins of the old one, fashioning a new physical and psychological space that the characters must now inhabit.

“Nothing is next. There is no next.”

The devastating nature of the September 11 attacks is illustrated by the characters’ inability to imagine what comes next. Before the towers collapsed, the world was known and understood. Keith and Lianne may not have been happy, but their lives were understandable. In the aftermath of the attacks, that understanding has been obliterated. They cannot plan their futures because they cannot comprehend a world where something like the terrorist attack could be happy. To them, nothing comes next because the very idea of a progression from the previous world into this new form of existence is absurd.

“They call this organic shrapnel.”

The doctors explain to Keith that, during suicide bomb attacks, pieces of flesh become lodged into the victims’ skin and become future irritants. These fragments of flesh are metaphors for the traumatic legacy of terrorism.