A number of incidents had taken place in the city, but they were not yet enough to destroy the daily lives of those who did not directly encounter them. At times, the "common sense" they had built up over the course of their lives paralyzed their senses. This side of panic, that common sense formed a membrane around people's daily lives that narrowly prevented them from seeing the oncoming madness. Or, perhaps, many of them had already noticed, and were trying to cling to a sense of security by feigning otherwise.
Not yet.
It's still OK.
It's not broken yet.
The city's still in one piece.
I'm sure things will be back to normal soon.
The membrane was filling up with wish after baseless wish that it would be so. That was why the people who sensed that, somehow, something was out of the ordinary felt happy, not uneasy. Happy that they were still in a full place. Happy that they were still this side of the border that separated the normal from the abnormal.
[...]
Suggestion, however, can only do so much. If the membrane — the sense of security — it cast was stretched too tight, it would eventually reach its limit.