The school’s closure must have happened years before and was obviously permanent. As Thomas turned away from the begrimed window, he realized that there simply weren’t enough children in the neighborhood to justify spending the taxpayers money to keep it open.
He walked away from the building to stand amidst the Johnson grass that grew abundantly on the pitcher’s mound of the school’s baseball field. Thomas turned a fully three hundred and sixty degrees searching for some sign of children. There was absolutely no one to play with or talk to as far as he could see. He was all alone in the schoolyard. The windows of the classrooms stared out vacantly on the weed-choked baseball field and playground like a dusty epitaph to his solitary rejuvenation. He was alone in his second childhood; not a single person he had known in his boyhood remained in the neighborhood save his mother.