Arthur tried hard to conceal a fresh tear from his left eye; he couldn’t bare the thought of anyone knowing his pain. The dusty car park upon which he stumbled, baron except for his thin figure, shook his legs, undulated, tilted in an attempt to throw him on his knees. How releasing it would be to weep, he thought. To not have to fight the rising storm in his throat, to give in! Give in to the eruption of sorrow that was forcing its way upwards. But no, he couldn’t let that happen, he was after all a proud old man who would rather die than let the flood of self pity overcome his levy of self consciousness, after all there were always people watching in the village. Eyes from tiny homes with dark windows always enquired, peaking out then disappearing back into their domestic void like goldfish in bowls. It was easy to resent such creatures who were content enough to lead this way of life, especially at a time when Arthur needed someone to blame, a scapegoat to hold a hand up and accept responsibility for his grief. 
     It was not the property market that he felt was the cause, an idea which had been thrown around by friends and acquaintances in the village. Conversations which conjured up images of suited fat cats summoning a wrecking ball upon the edge of a forest were common with the few locals that ventured any distance on foot further than their own drive-way. He was beginning to learn however that it was not those who chose to build the houses that were the problem; it was those who wanted to live in them. He himself was a businessman once, he knew about public demand and ruthlessness and he remembered the dislike people had for him because he had a bigger car and a tread-mill in his garage. There are no good words associated with businessmen; no one likes a successful person. Imagine being described as a generous entrepreneur or a forgiving member on the board of directors, it just doesn’t happen. To his neighbours he was hard-nosed, hard-faced, hard-hearted, but he knew that to be a mask, a survival tool. No, he had thought, you can’t blame the Fat Cats; they’re just giving people what they want.  
   Arthur had watched this once affluent hamlet prosper into a village and consequently expand its boundaries to conjoin with a neighbouring village. With his ebbing years he had seen orchards turn into cul-de sacs and a sloping meadow levelled out into a primary school. Sadly he sat by as the growing tentacles of suburban conurbation had gradually extended over time to within touching distance of his rural idyll, making it a simple matter of years before the village became at one with the towns he tried to escape. 
    And with this development there came demand. Arthur repeated the word in his head with contempt: Demand, demand, demand! He hated the word. No longer would a creaky old village kiosk and a greengrocers that doubled up as a video store suffice the need of a growing population. People needed more, and so packing their children into larger and larger vehicles they headed towards the towns, towards the supermarkets and café’s that would enable them to bathe in the same commodities that they would have before moving to the countryside. Accordingly, changing demand left people behind; Former pillars of community like Mark the Greengrocer and Janet from the kiosk had outgrown their worth. After being forced to sell up and face early retirement or obscurity you would still see them walking around the village, only now without the bestowment of relative, self contained celebrity that was common of rural habitat. Janet even found herself working on the check-out at the mini-market that was unceremoniously dumped on top of her old shop. Arthur remembered with sadness, the indignity of watching the jolly old lady have orders barked at her by a teenage supervisor in her opening week. It seemed somehow ironic that the woman who used to clip the ears of deviant youngsters around the penny sweet area, was now receiving a similar clipping off a company branded youth with braces and acne, for her own deviation. Arthur later discovered that the barcode scanning method had proved alien to a strong woman of arithmetic and tills that resembled typewriters; the teenager of course couldn’t care less that she used to own the shop on which the new building stood, and issued her directive upon patronising directive without restraint. Arthur would look at his feet when he ordered a pack of B&H at her post, for the shared humiliation between the two once sturdy companions was at times, too much to bear.
    He never thought however, that changing demand would mean the usurpation of even the most timeless of artefacts. Nevertheless here he stood, on a baron and dusty car park, fresh with the sickly knowledge that the Old Oak was no more. The retreat, the escape from bitter isolation for a handful of men had been stolen, taken away by them, the people. There would be nowhere to go to be found and everywhere to hide. Their place of warmth, of light was being turned into more houses like a bucket of water thrown on a hearth, and nothing could be done to stop it. All had retreated and admitted defeat to the powers of consumerism but few from the Old Oak would bow to it. Those that did had torn a temple to the ground without even raising a finger. The final remnant of village community was over and only a few cared.
    As Arthur took a left to head down Main Street, a road which used to resemble a beaten track for horse and cart, he gazed into the windows of some of the anonymous and characterless homes that had recently been erected. They did not reflect his face, nor any form of light, indeed it seemed to Arthur that they were a vacuum that could swallow even the identity of a man. When he arrived at his home what would he do? What more is their? The thought struck him like a bolt from the black and starless sky, but the tears stayed in, he wrestled them down once more. 
It was night time and the village stood silent, still.