An emptiness permeates our cities, smaller towns and movies along the roads. It did not use to be there. When it began to emerge, it went undetected for some time, suppressed beneath a kind of dizzy tipsiness that spread across the country and was everywhere and which perhaps transformed the very fundamentals of this country. That is why I dread those houses, that sit on the outskirts of any medium-sized town, and where constructed in a period of weeks early in the decade. Not much greenery surround them yet. The wooden porches overlook barren hills; passers-by may take them for small odd outdoor stages or just-laid down open-air dance floors. The houses were somehow built at the last minute; now the evening news light up the rooms each night as if an uncertain future - will it be about interest rate levels again? - attempts to contact its residents.
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