After three attacks, let's hope this is not the 'new normal'

While the "Trolley Man" fended off the attacker with a shopping cart, others rushed to give first aid or comfort to the wounded. So many started videoing the scene – not as voyeurs but as witnesses. Their accounts have been focused on, and they are willing to collect evidence for the authorities.

It is as if we are living in London or Paris.

And yes, they were OK, and to reflect on when they last walked past the busiest intersections in the city.

This community has developed a lot of scar tissue in the past two years.

Each one of them is in Melbourne's CBD in 20 months.

Those on Friday who witnessed the death of that great ambbadador of the city's hospitality, Sisto Malaspina, or saw those amazingly brave police officers shoot and subdue the knife-wielding Shire Ali, will be joining those who can not unsee the events of January 20, 2017 in Bourke Street, or December 21, 2017 in Flinders Street.

We have a pillar in our office, we have pinned a poster with the title "Code Red", which lists all the jobs we need to do when there is a critical incident in this city.

We've used it too often.

On broke, we're running out of muscle memory.

As reporters and photographers were dispatched to the scene, the same blogger who launched our blog. Our news editor started writing the story live as the calls flooded in. The same sub-editors and artists and their editors started their urgent work.

We looked at each other in our laptops, aghast that we had here before.

This is the second day of the trial of James Gargasoulas in the Supreme Court, where the survivors of the dead and six killed, dozens injured and hundreds of traumatized.

The wounds have been reopened in short, where many are watching or hearing.

Saeed Noori, the man accused of deliberately driving in flinders at the end of 2017, killing a man and injuring more than a dozen others, on Wednesday.

It will only be the coronial court that looks into last Friday's attack.

There are so many questions, and not all of them can be answered by forensic or legal inquiry.

Many have started to wonder if these attacks on the city's psyche could be infectious. Here in the newsroom, where we go to Melbourne to report these events.

loading

By Saturday afternoon, the reporter reported that the city's busy intersection had returned to normal.

The shoppers and tourists and city dwellers had returned, the presence of the police officers who are this city's brave face.

The police command has acknowledged, their response to these threats has evolved with each challenge. It is now the terrible duty of every officer, who has taken the place of Ali, to get between these vainglorious bastards and the rest of us.

I was reminded of a friend in Paris who was all too close to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, talking about the repeated attacks that Melburnians endure.

You got used to it, he said. You hate it but you get used to it.

Is it the new normal for Melbourne? Let's hope not.

But the reality is that you can not change your plans to shop in the Bourke Street mall, or hang out with your friends in the city, or prevent your family from doing so, there may be that tiny bit of doubt that wasn ' t there before.

Michelle Griffin is Age news director.