“He sat in an old chair near a particle board pinned with the yellowed obituaries of steelworker friends who died too early, including Robert Plater. 60. Cancer. A paper target practice figure hung next to the obituaries. Its heart had been blown out.”

Why is it great? I promise this is the last you'll see of Springsteen on this site for the foreseeable future. But I had somehow missed this story by one of my favorite writers (and former co-worker on the LA Times' foreign desk), Jeff Fleishman,  who sent me the piece after reading the recent Storyboard post on the singer as storyteller. First off, I know it's five sentences. But it reads like one beautiful thought, crystallizing the loss of hope in the heartland that Springsteen has long written about. As a matter of fact, it reads like one of his lyrics. Beautiful.