The demolition fence

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

From the pavement, I watched the first wall of the old office block come down. A machine lifted its metal jaw and took a patient bite. The wall resisted for a moment, then folded into itself with a dull, crowded crash. Dust rose in a pale curtain, hiding the result as efficiently as any theatre manager could have wished. When it thinned, a room that had once been private stood open to the morning.

There was a square of blue paint where a cupboard had sheltered the wall from sunlight. Above it, a cable hung without purpose. These small leftovers unsettled me more than the falling bricks. The building had always seemed solid, an ordinary certainty beside the bus stop. Now its rooms looked as temporary as boxes someone had forgotten to unpack. The machine moved again, calm and enormous, reducing another careful rectangle to a heap that possessed no corners.

I had no wish to preserve every empty office, and I knew the site was being rebuilt for housing. Still, the speed of the change was difficult to absorb. Years of opening doors, hanging coats and waiting for lifts were becoming one brief cloud behind a fence. I stayed until the dust settled, trying to match the space in front of me with the building my feet still expected to walk past.

Refer to the whole of Source A. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the demolition and its effect on the observer. Explain the effects of specific words, phrases and language choices, using evidence from the passage.