Boredom weasels its way in even the most financially destitute of us all. Millennials are not immune to the insanity that comes with perpetual unemployment, despite assertions from older generations about our fondness for smartphone apps and the like that are distracting us from our true goals, such as making wealthier individuals even wealthier. A trip sanctioned by my parental units to the local library in my small town was just what I needed to escape the stress of sitting on my rear, waiting for that special phone call of hope that would finally initiate me into adulthood.

One might be wondering why I needed my parent’s permission to leave the house in the first place. Well, like a good portion of my generational brethren, I live at home with my folks. For most of us, it’s the only alternative in the face of sheer homelessness (or if you’re really special, prison). I would be willing to bet most of us don’t want to go down the route of living with their parents again after college, especially those of us in our late 20's, but Need tends to dominate over Want more often than not.

The local library is several miles away from where I live, but it has the added bonus of being one of maybe two places in my hometown that have a decent wireless internet connection. Mind you, there’s internet availability at my home, however it’s satellite-based, and thus has a limited amount of bandwidth that can be used per month. This fact of life forces me to visit other places where I can graciously leech off of other people’s connections in order to feed my modern-day codependency, which is keeping in touch with a world that I barely feel connected to in the first place.

I live in a backwater town located in lower Alabama. It apparently used to be quite the thriving community back in the day, with mineral hot springs, folksy tourist spots to visit and even a train connection to the local metro city (Mobile, AL). Fast-forward to the modern-day, and you have absolutely none of that anymore. The hot springs don’t even exist anymore, tourists more than likely have no reason to come through here anymore, save to play a game of golf (which, let’s not forget, is the rich man’s sport of choice). To add insult to injury, there’s a small little museum dedicated to the glory of the railway that used to run through this quaint little place.

There seems to be a church on every corner here, reminding of us our daily sins. Hunting season is announced with a ensemble of large trucks, Vote Bush bumper stickers and the dumping of unwanted deer carcasses in not-so-visible areas. Uninhabited buildings that once were thriving businesses dot the landscape at various areas in the town itself, signifying a decrease in economic prosperity that cannot be hidden. Hell, we've been known to hold KKK rallies here at the local high school football field as well. A great place to raise a family, I hear.

The funny thing is, this is supposedly the land of milk of honey that so many nu-Country artists that are grown and raised in Nashville end up singing about. You know the ones I’m talking about… the kind of groups that somehow end up always having a hit single that praises the idyllic “small town life” and how it’s so much more meaningful to grow up/live in these areas than, say, New York City or some other potentially more open-minded metropolis.

Now, intelligent folks like you and I can read in between the lines of this sort of idealism funded by the marketing machine known as the country music scene, but down here people almost seem to take it as some sort of secular gospel to adhere to. Indeed, your southern-ness is dependent on listening to music that focuses on how country you are, and how your ignorance can be viewed as a sort of strength in the face of a rapidly changing world.

I think of all these things every time I take the scenic drive to the town library. The rolling fields and various breeds of bovine remind me of where I am. Where I came from. Why I tried to escape so many years ago through my foray into higher education. I think of how living on the true outskirts of society nowadays breeds self-hate and anger towards the outside world. Towards undeserving family members. To friends living far enough away not to be able to experience my daily truth.

That truth is… this is Hell.

We are living in the era of utter disconnect. This can be seen in my little town, as well in the rest of this great country. It can be smelled in the air, seen in the etchings of the concrete on the abandoned main street. It can be felt in the contemptuous stares of the locals directed towards me. The outsider. The threat. The failure that was never wanted, and now seemingly will never leave.

Each time I finally get to the town library, I always take a nice stroll around the area before coming back to my internet opiate injection of the day. Main Street isn't that far of a walk away. Each and every time I approach it, the same sort of feelings infect me. I witness death, every time. I view the abandonment of what was once a rather beautiful and bustling place. I walk it until I feel myself almost merge with the sheer monument of energy that the place still has buried within it streets, and then it hits me… I am my own Main Street.

Inside, I am lifeless. Wandering aimlessly like this body that my spirit currently inhabits. Abandoned. Things that I took as reality now seem like illusions brought about by sorcery spun via the puppet masters. The tin can rolls around in the distance, urged into movement by the wind, or perhaps some other ghost of the past who’s now excited that a random stranger takes interest in this lonely place.

I could write and produce a horror film right here on this street. I can imagine my corpse levitating in midair, blood pouring forth from the eyes and splashing onto the pavement below. Creating cracks in the earth. Swallowing this place whole. Rebirth. Maybe they would name a church after me.

Like every daydream, however, we have to wake up. The real question is, at this very moment, how can we be sure we are awake? So many of my kind are wandering through life as if it was a dream… but a dream of stasis, with no visible end. Is it Hell or Purgatory?

Behold the future of our great country in these few paragraphs. The asylum is open for business, but can it keep all of the patients entertained long enough to put out the fires beyond its walls?

True, this is a depressing story, and it’s probably bad taste for me to be publishing it on Thanksgiving Day. Many would scold me for complaining about my lot in life, about how things could be far worse… and indeed they could be. However, is that train of thought even remotely a good enough reason to continue on the course we are forging right now in the USA?

It’s hard to say thanks for anything in such dark times, however I shall all the same. I give my thanks to anyone and everyone that reads this particular story today, and feels even a modicum of similar emotion that I express within my paragraphs. If this is you, I’m thankful that you’re alive. I’m thankful that you understand me. I’m thankful that we will, hopefully, use this emotion that we are feeling now in our lives to fuel our resolve for change and guide us into a better, more prosperous future.

It’s up to us now, after all.