Wary people, open sores, many with tics, most of them, though, rendered calm with pills courageously distributed here. The pills made sure nobody was too clear on his or her situation, nobody felt hungry. These wonderful medications assured that most of the indigent didn’t jump out of windows or grab for pitchforks and shout: “What are you doing with our tiny, short, worthless lives? Is there really no place for us anywhere?” Most of all, the pills: dulled everything. As if half asleep the undead shuffled through the halls in greasy bathrobes and smelly sweatpants. Speaking of which—The Walking Dead had just been named the most successful TV series of all time.

Don briefly panicked. What if she never got out of here? If this was it? Here, with her family in a single room. Her brother already installed on his mattress, busy playing a first-person shooter game, mouth open, drooling, the idiot. Mother swaying on her bed.

It was Sunday. Don lay on a daybed and listened to the sound of her family breathing. Nobody said a word. Each on a personal island of horror. Normal people, members of the disappearing middle class, those employed in insurance and travel companies, always thought this could never happen to me when they studiously looked away from those on the side of the road. Maybe so. Maybe not. Every day thousands of new entrants arrived at shelters, at emergency overnight accommodations, on ventilation grates above underground stations.