Mike sat staring at the laptop screen long after his wife had sobbed herself to sleep. How she could do that was beyond him. All he wanted to do was something, but he knew that it wasn't the late hour alone that prevented him from.... what? What was he going to do? They had been responsible and honest all their lives, and where had it gotten them? They had taken their series of licks over the years, both individually, and now as husband and wife, but the setbacks never let up. There was never going to be a bailout for Mike and Darcy Heath. They had made what they thought was the smart and responsible decision to not buy when credit was easy and home prices were high. He remembered back to when he lived in Idaho all those years ago, and actually having a broker knock on his door on a Sunday morning. The guy was shameless, trying to convince him that he could "dump" the "starter" home he had at the time and upgrade to a $430,000 "family" home. Mike had just laughed and shut the door, leaving the greasy broker talking to himself.
Then the credit dried up, right after he sold, and there wasn't a chance in hell that he would own again. Had he fallen for the lies, maybe he could have held on. The administration at the time felt sorry for the countless homeowners who had signed up for mortgages they knew they couldn't afford. Or, should have known. It didn't matter now, as the American Dream was fading fast. Or was it already gone? Decade after decade, Americans had dug themselves into a hole they would never recover from. TARP I, II, III....gone. Just more debt piled on top of debt. The dollar was worthless, despite all the efforts of the Fed to stabilize it. They managed to prolong the inevitable longer than he ever would have expected, but they couldn't use corporate accounting to bullshit the public anymore. Or the world....the US dollar was finished as a global reserve currency.
Nothing the government had done on any front had benefited the Heaths; they had gone from fodder to prey. It made no sense to Mike, as he sat in the dark with his fitfully sleeping wife in his arms. First they lie to us, then they steal what little they can to keep the lies alive a little longer, he thought. Why couldn't they come out and just admit what 90% of America had already accepted? The sights from his extended drive from metro Denver earlier that evening hadn't shocked him - not even close. But it had enlightened him. He saw the differences for what they were. The towns that had money were trying to protect what little was left; those that had struggled over the years were giving up or disappearing altogether. What amazed him was that the communities that hadn't given up were the ones that had relied on riding the wave of money that no longer existed. The towns that were centered around actually producing something were going the way of Rhyolite.
Mike noticed that night was slowly turning to dawn as the early morning light became visible through the drawn curtains. He glanced at the clock on the laptop, now bouncing around the screen as a screensaver.
5 am. He slowly wiggled out from under the now snoring Darcy and reached across the coffee table for the remote. They had kept basic satellite service for their sole remaining television, an outdated LCD flatscreen, even after the rate had doubled in the last year. It meant they had to go without somewhere else in their small lives, but gave an occasional escape from reality. It also gave Mike an opportunity to keep up with the news away from the rural Colorado mountains, and he switched over to Fox News from the classic movie channel Darcy had been watching at some point. Why he bothered was beyond him, as the news was much more thoroughly sanitized then it had been in the past.
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