wisconsin

When Thomas left Wisconsin it wasn’t because he was forced out. Far be it from me to speculate on the reasons behind his departure, the reasoning behind their decision to send him away. Only Thomas and the elders can answer that. But he wasn’t forced out. At least that’s what Thomas told us. He made quite the point of it actually, to make sure we understood that it wasn’t that way. “Understand when I say there are no hard feelings,” he had told me. I suppose at that moment I understood, albeit somewhat confusingly. It seemed odd though, and the more I thought about it the more it made less sense.

We had talked the night before he left. I went over to his place in the evening and we spent some time together while he packed his things. He lived in a small, one bedroom apartment on Lane Lane across from the elementary school. I always thought it was funny that the city named it Lane Lane when they could have just as easily named it Lane Street or Lane Boulevard or even Lane Court. Thomas would tell people he lived on Lane Squared, as in exponents, but then he’d always have to explain the reasoning behind it. “You see, because there’s two Lane’s so it’s like it’s being multiplied be itself. Lane Squared. Get it?” He found it funny. Most people didn’t. That was just Thomas’s sense of humor, I guess.

I sat in the corner of his room, watching as he packed his things into a duffle bag no bigger than a corgi. “Seems awful small, don’t you think?” I asked him. He stopped for a moment and I could tell he was gathering his thoughts, trying to think of the right thing to say, as if to give nothing away.
“I suppose so, yeah.”
“Well don’t you think you’ll need a bigger bag? A suitcase at least?”
“This should do,” he said with a heavy sigh, and I could tell he didn’t want to discuss it any further. So I stopped.