But after that moment, after the triage and the lonely wail of ambulances and the abrupt conversions of the survived, there comes another silence that is not physical at all. It is the sound of the world adjusting to its new shape, the hesitation before one life steps in to the vacuum left by another. It may last for weeks, or snap abruptly into place like the bursting of a balloon. Perhaps it is always both, and the difference is a question of where you stand.