Margins Hold

Whatever line they’ve drawn around this town, it’s officially holding now. It’s no longer just a few cones or a ‘road closed’ sign; it’s a physical reality. The buses aren’t crossing the boundary anymore—they just turn around at the edge and head back where they came from. Deliveries are becoming slower, and the supermarket shelves have that hollow, picked-over look you see before a big storm. No one is standing at a podium saying why this is happening. They don’t need to. The silence from the authorities is its own kind of announcement. We are being separated, bit by bit, from the rest of the world. You don’t realize how much you rely on the ‘outside’ until the thread is cut.