(Every day this November I’ll conduct an interview with an imaginary person.)
I’ve lived in this house for over fifty years. I used to know everyone on the block. Now I know no one. People don’t talk to their neighbors anymore. Neighbors don’t support each other like they used to, don’t seem to feel they can depend on one another. It’s disappointing. This used to be such a vibrant place. Children played in the yards. People hung laundry to dry under the sun. You don’t see any of that anymore. You don’t even hear that anymore. The neighborhood has changed, and not for the better.
Have you noticed gradual, subtle changes, or does it seem like it all happened at once?
It happened one house at a time. The people I knew died or moved away. One at a time. Then the new people who moved into the neighborhood chose not to become a part of the neighborhood. They chose not to integrate themselves into its fabric. They drove places, rather than walking. They took strange people into their homes. They put up fences. If I step into my backyard today, I’m fenced in from every side. I never built a fence myself, nor had anyone build a fence for me. All the new ones chose to do it to me.
I feel unwelcome now at my own house. In my neighborhood. I’m the only one who has lived here this long, and they all want me gone because of it. They want to isolate me because they feel threatened by me.
What makes you think that?
The fences, the latched gates, the locked doors, the drawn shades. It’s people being gone during the day, then arriving late in the evening and going inside and locking the door behind them. It’s not going to the same grocery store or the same church—or maybe not attending church at all. It’s moving here and not attempting to make any friends here. Things used to be so different. Now everyone lives without a soul.
There’s a word for that: these people are automata.
I meant, what makes you think they want to isolate you, specifically? It sounds more like they isolate themselves—or like they just have other circles of friends who happen not all to live in one neighborhood.
Well, how can you be close to someone you aren’t near? That’s rubbish. When my two sons moved to other states, they made it clear to me that they felt I had no purpose and no value to them, that they didn’t want me to be around. The miles of highways were to be their fences to keep me away. Those people who live on this street now are no different than my sons—just more candid about their desires. Their fences are made of wood.
Posted November 20, 2009, 10 pm
