Street upon street of terraced houses are laid out in silent, regimented lines. Rubbish collects in damp corners and under the paint-cracked front doors that open directly onto the drab concrete. Front rooms are permanently barricaded behind cheap curtains. Dead flies lined up before these polyester bulwarks, ranged on the sill like a phalanx of tiny warriors guarding the fortress within.
Anaemic light pulses at the edge of certain windows. The ghostly flickering of late-night electronic distractions numbing the lost, the lonely and the insomniacs with its bilge of entertainment.