Staying inside the apartment has become too claustrophobic. My favorite little cozy apartment is just strangulating me with the TV coverage and the non-stop phone calls. No matter how much I try to lift up myself, the ghost of World Trade Center won’t leave me. It’s been three days that I am stuck at home unable to go to work. My work place, a financial bank, which is only three blocks from the World Trade Center, I hear, is surrounded by the National Guard and is being treated as a crime scene. I am getting updates every three hours from work regarding how the SEC is desperately trying to get the exchange up and running to show everything is normal. Can we go back to work and pretend everything is normal in a death valley?

I attempt to log on from home to my work’s server to check my email and for the first time in three days I can log on. May be things are becoming normal again. "Are you okay?" seems to be the theme of everybody’s email. So many people worried about me? Friends from college, friends from grade three, relatives from Bangladesh – all wrote after failing to reach me by phone. Even the ex girl friend, who did not speak to me for four years, wrote a line. Uh! Why am I choking? I don’t know. I can’t breathe any more.

Fifteen minutes ago, I heard of a friend who is still missing. He took classes with me. He was doing his MBA just like me into his second year and was working full time for a Wall Street firm. Rohit Verma was his name. This name could have been easily replaced by the name Asif Saleh. Everything else remains the same. Then there was Sallahuddin. His wife gave birth to a baby boy today. He was working at the "Windows of the World" restaurant ,saving the extra few dollars for the new arrival in the family. Where is he now? Then there was Tumpa and Nurul Huq, my bhabi's sister and brother in law, who are both missing at work from the 97th floor. They were newly married just like I was three years ago. All these names, all those faces in the TV and all those pictures are suffocating me. Any of these faces could have been mine. I can’t take it any more.

I walk out of my apartment and get into a coffee lounge. A large TV is playing there constantly as well. Sitting with a cappuccino there, I cannot help but pick up the paper. "The Day After", the headline says with a massive picture of a bulldozer lifting the remains of our favorite WTC. It’s the same thing no matter where I look. All the faces around me are sad. Every body around me is talking about the same thing. Seems like there is no respite. Some artist is sitting at the pavement outside with some cards that you can paint for free and wish for any friend who is missing. I see a little kid is painting with her parents. Images of the kid who lost her mother pop up. Ah! Why can’t I get this trauma off my head? I look around. I see another poster -- "Missing ..25 years old worked at 107th floor". "TAKE IT AWAY!", I scream in my head!

I leave the coffee lounge. Where can I go to get some peace? I see a note on the wall. "Vigil service at the church for all faiths", it says. I stroll along there. An old lady introduces herself as the pastor and greets me. "Can I sit here for a few moment", I ask with some reservation about the shorts I am wearing. Such a reassuring face she has! She says, "Sit as long as you want". I sit there for a few moments and pray for all those missing faces. Wherever you are, I hope there is not another "windows of the world" there. I don’t want you all to take a peek at this dirty world through those windows. I lose my concentration by a "Breaking News" announcement. There is a TV in the church?! I walk away.

It’s such a different city today. I pass some women talking about how less motivated she feels ever since the incident. That makes me feel better. I am not the only one then. An ambulance starts screaming. It symbolizes the state of the city today. We all look at it and sigh. Did another building collapse? I notice a blood donation poster. No luck there either. They have collected more than enough for the day. I stroll along to the Barnes and Nobles. I am not looking for a book; rather just looking for some quiet space. Shivers go through my spine seeing the cops. Each floor of the largest bookstore Barnes and Noble, where people freely roam around, now has fully armed policemen positioned for possible suspects. People are walking up to them and shaking hands with the heroes. That’s a new thing in New York where NYPD used to be one of the most hated departments in the city only a few months ago.

It’s a very different city tonight. As I am walking along the street, there are many different conversations I overhear – all with just one single topic. A young white woman animatedly protests the singling out of the Arab American colleague of hers just because of her name, even though she is born and raised here; a teacher says how media is making the job of the terrorists easy by constantly playing the events in details 24 hours a day. An old lady says how she wants to hug New York for all its sorrows today. This is a New York I have never seen. The sad faces of the people are trying desperately to act normal but the surroundings are not cooperating. Police cars are constantly running around the streets. The traffic is wafer thin. At eight o clock, the streets of the city that never slept becomes almost empty. Most of the cars are displaying the American flag, while the radio stations have completely left the top 40 songs and in stead are playing patriotic songs like "God Bless America". Nationalism is at full display.

Suddenly for the first time in New York, I feel scared and lonely. I feel like a minority. Diversity and open mind of the residents were my crown jewel reasons for living in New York. But tonight I am walking a safe distance away from the next pedestrian. Tonight I feel like the unwelcome guest with whom the host does not know how to react. I go inside my cage again sparing the "host" of the embarrassment.