Where is Your Safety? What Does it Cost You?

All her hoarding had depleted her. So it went, with safety, the more you guarded, the less you had. —Richard Powers, The Echomaker

An abandoned couch, torn with no cushions, sits on the dessert dirt.

Tell us about the person who owned this couch. To do that, you will need to persuade us that at one point, that couch was beautiful in the eyes of the purchaser, so beautiful that the woman or man who bought it added to tens of thousands of dollar of debt that they already carried.

Tell us the progression of the couch from treasured object and status indicator to repository of grease stains and crumpled candy wrappers, to “Let’s just take it out to the desert. Eddie’ll let us borrow the truck.”

Prompt: Now, tell us about your treasured objects and status indicators – past, present and future. Tell us how they keep you safe. Tell us how they drain you. Tell us if you believe that More will keep you safe. And More. And More.