There came a point where time itself refused to advance.  Clocks had to be goaded mercilessly forward.  Enormous resources were diverted, not into getting the trains to run on time, but toward keeping them anywhere near their tracks at all.  Commercial signage rioted up and down the great faubourgs, inflatable figures collapsed en masse and smothered their would-be handlers.  Fake mansard rooves slid off buildings blocking entranceways to emporia from which the goods had in any case already fled.

This was the last great rebellion, after which, the world claimed itself as a passive place, a zone of no surprises.  The dominant organism became the couch, and lord help the mortal who tried to pry himself off one and see what was going on outside.  A great deal had been used up and a great deal remained.  But the truth was that the appliances that once danced on countertops and who had always dreamed of skating confined themselves to performing their functions within the limits of the strictest code. If a corruption came, well then, the lit tle green light would just wink to amber.  And our ears, long deaf to human cries, let the beeps beep on as if nothing were happening.  And damn, this time they were right.