I can’t wait to get back to normal. How long before I’m bored?

By Ann Wroe

Many years ago, on a road trip in America, I found myself in Arcadia. It was not as expected. The Arcadia I imagined was all rolling green hills and verdant woods in which shepherds played their pipes and cross-dressing lovers lounged about on the grass. Arcadia, Kansas, was nothing like that: it was a tiny dot in a great sea of prairie flatness, under a hard blue sky.

This Arcadia had two red-brick storefronts, long abandoned, which were covered with ivy and leaning into the street; a few living stores, including a café with tired net curtains; and a shopfront with the words “City Hall” painted above the windows. Outside it, two middle-aged women were struggling to get the Stars and Stripes to half-mast on a tricky new flagpole, advised or obstructed by two plump young men in a pick-up truck that was parked in the middle of the street. Maybe I was the only other car that passed through Arcadia that day.