The First Counsel

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When I eventually finish at quarter to four in the morning, I'm a bleary-eyed mess. Except for a twenty-minute break for dinner and a ten-minute begging session to get an extension from the Staff Secretary, I've been sitting in my chair for almost eight hours straight. A new personal record. Yet as the laser printer hums with the fruits of my labor, I find that I'm oddly wide awake. Not sure of what to do, and in no mood to go home, I casually flip through my still unopened mail. Most of it's standard: press clips, meeting announcements, going-away party invitations. But at the bottom of the pile is an interoffice envelope with a familiar handwriting in the address box. I'd recognize that bubble cursive anywhere.

Opening the envelope, I find a handwritten note with a single key Scotch-taped to it: "For when you're done--Room 11. Congrats!" At the bottom is a heart and the letter N. As I pull off the key, I can't help but laugh. Room 11. It's even better than parking inside the gate.