2 - At the basketball court.

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And I was down at the lot where the school used to be, before the preppers took it over. The hoops and backboard in the basketball court are still there, but the ice and weeds and have broken the pavement so badly these past three years, and they stand as high as I do. I remember playing with my kids here. All the cars keep driving on past the chain-link, and meanwhile the gnomes are playing some kind of ball game between the weed stems. I think they found a little super-ball. I brought a sandwich to the hill behind it, and I watched them. As I chewed, I thought about how happily they carry on in the ruins of what we had. And what does that mean?

A crow swooped down and grabbed one of them, kicking and screaming as it was carried off. The other gnomes waved their arms and shouted for a bit. And then they went back to their game like it never happened. My kernel of wistful affection for them, wrapped in nostalgia as it was, turned to a rancid seed in a pod of putrescence. I wanted to throw up. The cars beyond the fence sounded differently to me now, and the sky felt bigger, looming and threatening as the open ocean. I left my sandwich in the dirt as I got up and left. The crows would be back for it soon.

Next - 3 - The old vans.

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