Today was the fall of my Rome. It still hasn’t sunk in yet. Welcome to the Vampire Hours. The helpdesk has packed up and left. Set for new territory. And so have I. When I was leaving work, there were holes in the walls, false ceiling tiles on the floor, shattered plasterboard ground into the carpet and wiring hanging like wet hair. Televisions and electrical equipment lay about everywhere. They were going to shut off the phones at four o’clock… My office crap, which really just flotsam I crammed into a box is about to be shipped to an office I won’t be working within. Maybe its really jetsam. Either way, when I come back it will be in a new environment surrounded by new faces with a new mission.

Back in the present I left the office heaved myself into a car and drove to the airport and then flew north. Unfortunately, flying with me was apparently every child in Christendom. Some massive school excursion happened here and now they were flying back. Fortunately, I somehow managed to buy the second or third last seat on the plane, riiiiiiighht at the back. Away from the screaming spawn conceived when Cobain’s demise was still relevant and the internet did not have the speed to beam hi-def pornography directly into our skulls. It was more lo-def then…By the time the plane lands, the kids are crawling over seats and through the baggage lockers, with exhausted teachers yelling at them to sit down. Each word uttered by these people is poison tipped.

I jump on a train to the city to meet with my brother, whose going to drive to my parents house. We catch another train and I lose my ticket. My brother said this was no big deal because, there’s rarely ticket inspectors on the line, this line, that he rides everyday. Because I am wise and know how the universe works (i.e. to screw with my head) I lay a wager: If I get caught and get fined, he has to pay.

Lo and behold just a couple of stations from our stop are two people in uniforms ready to check out our tickets. My brother flashes his rail card, but my ticket has gone the way of dodo (think of something better) and is nowhere to be found. The ticket inspectors aren’t blind seeing the bags I have lugged from the airport and provide me with a friendly warning: Do it again and it’s two hundred lucre. And so my brother just won a bet. I am both mystified and vexed at the same time. After a short stop at his place, I hurl myself and my gear into car and head back towards the elephant’s graveyard where I was born. It was a place where I lived far too long.

My dad goes away on his own trip tomorrow morning so arriving tonight was somewhat crucial. So for this very brief moment, the four of us, my blood, are together under one roof for more than a year. Goodnight.