NOVEL WORKSHOP

The Decay

… in recent years … a gigantic betrayal of the people … now there will be an end to it

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

7

He had talked to Sander. People were annoyed, angry. The hopelessness lay like a hazy blanket over the neighborhood. Several had lost their jobs, and are looking for a new one.

In the house next door, with the Nilsen family, it was unusually quiet. Kevin was not there. Someone further down the street has said that the man has left. Elsa sits back. Someone says she has locked herself in.

It had happened one morning, while some of the neighbors were standing by the mailbox rack. Kevin came at full speed, got in the car, waved to the neighbors and shouted: “Now it’s happening, we will speed things up. We’re going there and we’ll get rid of the criminals, they’ll not get away with it. We’ll fix it, we’ll get them out.”

The mood developed more and more in the direction of unrest, conflict.

Further down the street there was war. Two neighbors disagreed on a fence, one had set up poles. During the night the other tore down what had come up.

They live outside of everything, in a country that people travel from, not to. They had left, settled in an isolated place in the belief that they would escape the rising unrest in the country.

People are pessimistic, they look at everything darkly. The atmosphere in the street is bad. Some women work together to create a meeting place in the street. They go for walks in the hills around the city. They try to live as much as possible as before, but it is not possible to completely shield themselves from what is happening in society at large.

Large ethnic groups are outside. They lack a fixed income, many are financially handicapped, have poor health care, they lack basic benefits.

A man is sitting on a chair in front of his house. He talks to those who stop in passing. Everyone tell about the same thing. The politicians at the highest level, the government, the elected representatives have failed. What has happened in recent years is a gigantic betrayal of the people. But now there will be an end to it.