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I live in a country of old people. Our birthrate is the lowest in the world and it’s not reasonable to expect that it will increase in the near future, given that young couples who are still at the reproductive age emigrate to more prosperous countries. This should come as no surprise, because we don’t cultivate the land, nor do we set up factories, or build homes. Tourism, which was the nation’s hope, has been a resounding failure; no one wants to get to know a country where the only thing you see in the streets is soldiers, a country where peace has disappeared in hotels. The constant house invasions worry foreigners, who are immediately treated as suspects merely for having beards. As for female tourists, they can’t bear to be searched every time they go into an office or a store. The state has apologized to its residents repeatedly, promising to resolve the situation in a few months, but as with so many other projects, like eliminating gangs in the country, the solution is delayed, and in the end, never reached. The only guaranteed thing is policemen and soldiers to maintain order. And besides, we will no longer have national elections because of our turmoil, so it’s necessary to find a new source of employment to occupy the mother country’s children, who will not be able to make a living negotiating retirement or delivering recommendations. (I have already said that, due to the chaos, we will not have elections.) Children are not seen playing in the streets like in other countries; in the places where we used to relax before—I mean plazas and markets, parks, backyards, grassy meadows—one finds only shrivelled-up elderly people, wrinkled like old crumpled papers, and soldiers aiming their rifles at the church dome or an apartment balcony, policemen forcing drivers to get out of their cars to search them. And many civilians also, civilians who are policemen in disguise, from what can be determined. Old people come out to sunbathe, frequenting places where, in former days, mothers used to walk their children; they are like dwellers of a dark region of hell, pale —— 6 —— 2 ...

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