He began a ritual. Every night at dusk, he went to the top of the Empire State Building with a high-powered marine flare. He would stand on the observation deck, the wind whipping his hair, and fire a streak of brilliant crimson into the indigo sky. He would watch it arc over the silent skyscrapers, a desperate comma in a finished sentence.
Thomas sat down. The city was still empty, and the world was still broken, but as they sat by the fire, the silence finally felt like peace. The Only Living Boy in New York
His days followed a surreal, quiet logic. He spent his mornings "shopping," which mostly involved breaking the silence of high-end grocery stores to find canned goods that hadn't expired. He’d walk through the middle of Broadway, kicking a soccer ball for blocks without ever having to look for cars. He began a ritual