Dead End

He took the Greyhound to the dying
town and rented a cheap room near the
factories – most of which, he found,
were dead and empty things. He called
the plant he once worked at, long ago
before his stint in the army, before his
discharge sent him back out into the
world, wandering. It had come to that,
even though he knew in life there is no
going back. A long shot at best, he was
hoping he could connect with someone
who remembered him from the past.
Mute point. They weren’t hiring, didn’t
expect to be, might be down sizing, or
closing completely, like every other
place in the vicinity. The same people
walked the streets – hardscrabble
working class families. Only no one
was working and the buildings were
decaying and all you saw on each face
was that look of quiet desperation. You
can’t go home again. You can’t stay
there either. We are all nomads, now, in
a no man’s land; not even looking for,
or expecting to find, our own private
little Garden of Eden, each day a
blessing, in which to live our lives.