The state of the Housing Campaign and the state of his life are one and the same.

Man-alley symbiosis, neither doing great.

He is trying to fend off entropy with a dustpan and brush.

Again with the railing.

Again. The railing. It is imbued with some exceptional significance, a symbol whose meaning you cannot parse yet.

You can almost hear the emotional blast doors slamming shut.

Degeneracy everywhere. Thinning bloodstream. Weakness upon weakness.

A value at least as abstract as his son's social currency.

An insanely subsidised economy of illusions.

Cities made of playing cards.

The broom does not gaze back.

He sweeps his broom a couple times. A tic that sets the world back in order.

The Reunión: La Luz's grand annexation campaign -- slow, legal, often bloody. A creeping tide reclaiming, every few years, one more of their old colonies.

Everyone occupying one fixed and immovable place on the pyramid of life.

No dreams of peace, justice or equality -- only those of a well-oiled machine.

This is only a philosophical conversation for one of you.

An oddly specific example of societal decay...

A race of primitive sophisticates wanders through the vine-covered ruins of Portofiro. Impeccably dressed in fabrics the secrets of whose production has been lost, they skulk around judging each other's fashion while the day's strip of rat meat dries on the line.

Interesting chimeras do proliferate after the End of History.

Again he returns to that railing, symbol of civilisational continuity.

Again. The railing. It is imbued with some exceptional significance, a symbol with meaning you cannot parse yet.

A palliative measure at best, but then again...

You could use the liquidity.

'Their own' tasks, which is your case are the diametric opposite of sweeping, operant.

Life is a palliative measure.

He knows every face and name that has moved in or out of this alleyway. It's just a question of loosening him up.

Too quick on the denial. That's a big, flashing 'yes.'

Oskar told you about her wedding -- that's the grease that will soften him up.

Confirming that he does, in fact, know her. This man would be a terrible operant.

Only a subjugated stickler for the rules would call Eszti a 'nice lady'. Cut from the same un-fun cloth.

Excrutiatingly. Robotically.

A moment of silence -- Eszti has found new gäng.

A blankness to the eyes, a downward twitching to the mouth. The beginnings of panic.

The suicide clock ticks one stroke closer to midnight.

Now he thinks we narc hard! Soon the entire Campaign will know!

The last impression you register is the brush hairs scraping ineffectually over a layer of sad decrepitude that is not exactly filth.

What is wrong with this place, no broom can touch.

Tomorrow, the dust will have spread again. Objects will erode, and total amount of dust in the world will have increased by an infinitesimal amount.

Influential, feared on the international stage, but not remotely wealthy.

BUT WITH AN ABUNDANCE OF IDEAS. RICH IN THEORY.

THE REACTIONARY WORLD AWAITS YOUR DEFECTION! THE BOSSES WILL MAKE YOU HOLD THE BROOM, THEN TAX YOU FOR HOLDING IT.

YOU ARE TRANSLUCENT WITH THE WORKERS' SPIRIT.

A curious intimation that, maybe... you have found your place. This is what you are meant to be doing. What you should have been doing all along.

Stop this at once, Operant, before it is too late!

He hurriedly smooths down the single patch of hair which time has yet to steal from his head.

You're dealing with a 'Get Off My Property' type here. Problem is, his property is communal.

Not sarcasm. He's clearly proud of the depressing surroundings you find yourself in.

'Nice Campaign' certainly sounds better than 'laboratory of urban decay'.

And secret prisoners?

Sweetly sickening. Like a thousand strawberry air freshners all at once.

Checks