This is a tale of two countries. One is a legal fiction, known on VicRoads maps as Section 2(b) of the Western Highway duplication project: 12.5 kilometres of theoretical dual carriageway on National Highway A8.

The other is a place heedless of all that: a stretch of land engaged in the business of existing: living and breathing as it has always done, and will do until the moment the legal fiction sends real-life machinery to flatten and destroy it.