One after another, the stations on the way out of wishing as if the services were decomposing exhibit a bleakness, a shrinkage and consecutive shuttering. Fewer newspapers, the few delivered out of date weaker tea, staler nuts, more sun bleached signage less milling more huddling of more broken masses less hubbub more muttering, less anticipation more sense of being turned out of bed more thorough the checkpoint searches, more menacing the rifles too few to occupy so much too little for too much. Attenuation blights these outposts, all the inconveniences of the untelephoned slums I haunted close to her attractive pain with none of the attractions, inertia and savagery beyond hailing distance of her civilizing glances.