Status Updates From Spiderweb

The old and the young are washed to the margins of life — unessential and dependent. They share only the opportunity for untrammeled observation.

“In Stella’s opinion, marriage had flung her friend into a premature matronhood that seemed like some smug assumption of the veil. Nadine, on the other hand, saw Stella as perversely embracing a future of promiscuity and ultimately solitude. This disparity of vision was to prompt a gradual distancing…. Monthly messages would give way to an occasional exchange of letters and eventually to the ritual Christmas card.”

Real life continues here, beneath the surface gloss of brown signs inviting departure from the main roads….People are still growing things and selling them and providing one another with services…. Most of them spend much of their time in one place, contemplating the same view, locked in communion with those they see every day. For some this is a stranglehold; others are more fortunate.