Gather Yourselves Together

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It was early summer, and the day was almost over. It had been warm during the afternoon, but now the sun had set and the evening cold was beginning to come in. Carl Fitter walked down the front stairs of the men’s dormitory, carrying a heavy suitcase and a small package tied with brown cord.

He paused at the foot of the stairs, stairs of rough wood, painted with grey porch paint that had chipped and peeled with age. They had been painted long before Carl had come to work for the Company. He looked back up. The door at the top was sliding shut slowly. As he watched, it closed tight with a bang. He put his suitcase down and made certain that his wallet was buttoned into his pocket in such a way that it could not possibly fall out.

“That’s the last time I’ll ever be going down those stairs,” he murmured. “The last time. It’ll be good to see the United States again, after so long.”

The shades behind the windows had been pulled down. The curtains were gone. Boxed up somewhere. He was not the last person to leave the building; there was still the final locking up to do. But that would be done by the workmen, who would see to it that the windows and doors were tightly boarded, protecting the building until the new owners arrived.

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