Few understand this feeling, but it gets me high.

Empty, rainy, gloomy streets. Every building is decrepit, and basically everyone is elderly. No one's going to work even though it's a non-holiday weekday. You go to Stewarts, buy an Eggwich, and walk around all day, unemployed.

There are no cars on the road. No one is coming to visit here today. It's absolutely pissing with rain -- chilly, miserable, dark even at noon. There's no reason to be here. You haven't seen a person your own age in months.

You are free from the harsh sorrows of the wide world. There's no "grind" here. No "who's who." No one cares -- it's all dying, falling apart, silent, poor, crumbling.

But boy, that Eggwich tastes good. The Stewart's lights glow in the fog. The empty library beckons you in; you slink down in some dark corner of it, hearing the ventilation fans kick on, reading some obscure local history book that no one has checked out since 1982.

If you stay here long enough, you might be the Mayor. Or you might drink yourself to death. There's no telling what the future holds for a young fellow who sticks around here. It's complete freedom -- maximum self-ownership. Every schema for defining what you should be doing with your life has died, failed, gone elsewhere. Every hour of your life is truly up to you.

There's something weirdly Promethean about all this. Or is it just depressing? You ponder this question, shambling around the empty towns, eyeing the pigeons in the caved-in barns...

I'm serious, it gets me high. I can't quit it. I love nothing more than this.