“Potatoes?” asks Karen, who is sitting with the others on the terrace, which is to say, a muddy bit of garden they’ve covered with a tarp from a freight truck. Of course potatoes, potatoes are always passed around the fire. In the half-darkness, the building lit up yellow from within, whatever did they use this space for in earlier times? Back when there was still an economy that wasn’t online. Perhaps this was a warehouse for spare auto parts, or maybe they manufactured rope here, who knew. And who needs rope or wire or watering cans or jam jars anymore? Nobody needs real products when there’s no real life anymore, just a nervous waiting on the state of things. The potatoes roast over the fire. The young people stare at them. Like a group of English teachers at Stonehenge.

Down, down

Yellow and brown

The leaves are falling

Over the town.

Silence. The fire crackles sporadically as potato peels pop. Planting food is such a The Day After Tomorrow thing. Youth in paramilitary outfits, dirty and armed, gathered around a fire in the middle of nowhere like in an old cyberpunk comic. Back when young people still had time for so-called youth culture. “Anyone want another potato?” asks Don, breaking the tinnitus-like din of the distant city that is otherwise broken only by helicopter rotors.

They’re coming again, thinks

ROGER

HEALTH CONDITIONS: high blood pressure, aquaphobia

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: irrelevant

SEXUALITY: none

POLITICAL SUGGESTIBILITY: very receptive