Gone.

I sealed the final box, the packing tape screech cutting through the otherwise silent Park Avenue office floor. Three years of a career filtered down to five boxes. Back up ties. Coffee mugs and felt pennants from each of my schools. Notes, records, correspondences. Boxes sent home, not shipped to another office or messengered upstairs to the 40th floor. Home. Done.

Three hours prior I was planning a semester's worth of travel. Presentations to give. Students lives to change. Hands to shake. A semester's worth of motions needed to be planned. I was planning.

Two hours and 55 minutes prior I was fired. This was not a motion but I knew. Pet food politics aside, I became a January statistic that others will read about in February. Coincidentally my 26th birthday is a month to the day from this moment. Scatter brained.

Head spinning from denial.

I found comfort in the words and warmth of friends, the taste of a chicken burrito, and the bottom of a highball of scotch. Neat.

My desk was never neat.