Bushes covered the front windows. Wildly grown. He couldn’t see out. A gravel driveway with a truck on concrete blocks parked in it. Trashcans overflowing in the alley. Tom cats trace back and forth. Old chicken bones strewn. Gutters falling off.

No one left that house. None of the neighbors knocked on the door. Burned out Christmas lights hung on nails in the siding. A lamp shined in the side window. It was never turned off.

People wondered if he was alive. Grass and weeds grew in the yard in the summertime, and snow covered a broken up sidewalk in winter. The old man sat eating Saltine crackers in his easy chair. He sat in silence. He didn’t even talk to himself. Alive? He had given up on life years ago.

There is no comfort in being alone. Old and alone. Left behind by wives, lovers, children, dogs that ran around the house. You become a stone. You don’t move. Just wait for death. Maybe death waits for you.

It wasn’t what he planned. Alone. But, things got out of hand. Some say it was drinking, but he never drank. Others said it was mental illness. Said he was on some kind of disability for being crazy. And, maybe he was. But, no one ever stepped a foot on that front porch to find out. No one ever knocked on his door. Sometimes, kids would look through the windows. They never saw anything. Just a lamp on a table. Their parents told them to stay away. Kids never mind their parents.

So, the old man sat in the dark eating Saltine crackers. Crumbs in his lap. A beard down to his chest. Alone. No one likes to be alone.