A small town with stretches and stretches of concrete. Shiny cars parked in the sun in clean parking lots with not a soul in sight. Plazas with huge edifices of departmental stores and chain restaurants displaying happy signs with overly happy mascots dozing in the sun with no one to see.
Tree lined roads with large mansions on either side which look like most rooms in them have never really been occupied. High fences guarding lives that are not there inside for most of the year.
Perhaps there are nuances here, stories that I am unable to catch. Signs of life that escape me.
Huge skyscrapers with tinted glass walls. Squeaky clean reception areas with women with painted faces and plastic smiles. Men and women in black suits and identical expressions on their faces that make them all look alike. They are always going somewhere. Guarded people with guarded lives. Their stories are not ones I can read. So their stoires are ones that I cannot write.
Stretches and stretches of tarpaulin covered spaces that are homes for multiple men, women and children huddled together. Tin pots and pans and crying children sitting outside. Voices shouting to each other and people visible through imperfectly hung rag curtains sitting on the floor apparently doing nothing of great consequence to the world.
Lives on display to the passers by.
Nuances that are easily visible. People that seem easy to read. Stories that seem easy to tell.
Signs of life that seem so easy to interpret and display with authority. Lives that fall a victim to the pen.
bottledworder 
Thank you. This is quite wonderful.
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I have nominated your blog for Blog of the Year.
http://muketsuhanagames.com/2012/12/10/omg-omg-omg-im-hyperventilating/
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Sound like those new empty cities in China.
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I love your pages and your form of self-expression, it is a pleasure to have you share your gifts through your pages Thank you. I have nominated you for blog of the Year please visit my page Blog of the year awards and nominations Thank you! Revised
Posted on December 9, 2012
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Just wanted you to know that I have nominated your blog for Blog of the Year, http://helpfromcyranette.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/2012-blog-of-the-year-award/ . You are a fine writer, and I always enjoy reading your posts. Merry holidays! .
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I absolutely love a good ‘setting’. There are stories everywhere we look. What a fabulous post 😀
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I can imagine the lives of the guarded more than I can imagine the lives and loss of the ones out there for all to see.
Beautifully written–in few words you have created so much for us to think about.
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Writing a succinct but evocative setting (even in a short poem) is one of my favorite things to practice & try to bring out…love the images here, really rich. Be well~
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I love the line guarded people with guarded lives.
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My young son and I have been reading a book about a boy who was swept away from his family during Hurricane Katrina. I would find it incredibly difficult to write anyone’s story but my own (and even that is uncomfortable, if not difficult)…although, like you, I wonder about the facades I see when I am in town or among other people. I worry that writing about them – having them “fall victim” to my own pen – would be judgmental in some fashion…which is why I have come to prefer photography to writing. Thank you for this powerful and thought-provoking post.
~Lyann
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Thanks for reading. Even the camera can do the same thing 🙂
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Absolutely 🙂
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