¶ … bicycles were supposed to be stacked neatly in the rack but they were piled in a heap as if students rushing late to class had simply thrown them down. The bicycles looked like toys left behind in a sandbox by children who have outgrown them and will never return. The bench next to the bike rack needed to be repainted. The raw wood showed through the flaking paint, exposing splinters that would embed themselves in the legs of the unwary.

The birds that cluster around most spots where gullible students might like to feed them are absent from this particular bench, as if they too might be afraid of piercing their thin-skinned feet with the splintery wood as well. Or perhaps it is the fact that this bench is sheltered by no large trees as the other nearby benches are. This lack of shade...

There is nothing that would draw the animal denizens of the campus to this place -- birds or squirrels or even the little green lizards that in the warmer months and out in the vines on the buildings.
On second thought, it is probably not that the students were late that causes them to pile their bikes on the rack with such haste. It is probably simply that they do not want to stay here any longer than they wish to.

This is not…