Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [Pitzar] The Office
Message-ID: <1993Apr7.223347.2324@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
From: corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley )
Date: 7 Apr 93 22:33:47 GMT

We wrote and printed all night.  The few news imps that turned up the
next morning got doubly-thick wads of paper shoved in their hands and
slaps on their rump.  The sun over Generica blazed out like a sudden
torch in a dark room.  I hadn't seen the sun in a while.

But we had done it.

That morning the Examiner hit the streets with a dozen stories of the
damage of the storm.  We wrote the stories during the storm, and had
no way of knowing what had really happened, but there was no way for
us to know that it _didn't_ happen the way we told it.  Not much
sense in printing "Storm Hits, We Stay Inside All Night and get Shaken
To Hell By Wind And Thunder."  Sometimes the truth gets in the way of
the story.  But sometimes the story just grabs truth by the collar and
shoves it right in your face.  That's what it did that morning.

Papers were scattered everywhere.  Some of the back issues had been ruined
when a window in the archives had been ripped open and rain had slashed
in like a kid with an inkwell.  We had to toss them, a total loss.
The notes, the books, the maps, everyone's desks were thrown across
the rooms like a child's toys.  It would be days before we were fully
cleaned up.

I just tipped my desk back upright, and pulled the bottle of Dragon's
Red out of the bottom drawer.  Broken.  I threw it out.  At least the
wind that had blown through the building had cleared the dust away.
Even as it was, the papers were yellowed and cracked from sitting in
the sun for so long.  I rested my head on the cool wall and closed my eyes
just for a minute, inhaling the dank, moldy smell of Generica after a storm.
I heard footsteps and opened my eyes.  There, in the empty doorframe, was
Dawn.  She stood in the frame very stiffly, her eyes a total blank.

Dawn was one of two female reporters for the _Examiner_.  Some people
talked, but never around her.  She was tough, and anyone who thought any
different was in for a nasty surprise.  I thought different, once.
And for a while, she thought I was right.  But she had looked out the
small grimy window one morning, and turned to me with a look that said
more than a hundred articles, words skittering out of the quill.  And
there she was, standing in my doorway as if someone had planted her, watered
her and let her take root.  I thought, suddenly, for no reason, that I had
seen her before.  Of course I had, but somehow I again felt that I was home.
Even though I knew I wasn't.


I finally spoke. "Dawn."

She looked at me. "You're all right, then..." she said, reflectively, almost
to herself.  Then she added, "You're all right, Jake?  Helluva storm."

I nodded. "Helluva storm."

She swallowed hard. "Yeah."  She pushed her hair back out of her face,
and for a moment the sunlight glittered on the soft gold ring on her
third finger.  Plain gold.  "Well, I'll see you around."  Her footsteps
clattered away even as my lips opened and no words came out.
--
"Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations
 and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot
 actually masturbate."-----------------------------------Dave Barry
Jason "corleyj@gas.uug.arizona.edu" Corley is Wanted for Impersonating a Student