7511. INTENDING MR. CADKINS

INTENDING MR. CADKINS

Intending to find everything in order, I entered this

last room with a thought  -  what if I suddenly

could find nothing at all? The ceiling had leaked

some, since last I was here, a yellowed thin pattern, 

a flow down a flaw. Did not make me happy to see,

that. The reinforced window glass  -  it was that kind

with the wire-mesh embedded  -  resembled nothing

so much as an opaquing and fading of a prison window,

or at least some awful factory scene. The clank and

jumble of the one person elevator faded. The gates 

were shut. I was alone enough to be really alone, and

figured  -  if I smoked  -  this would be the time and

the place for that. Over in the desk-copy area, the place

was dead : no one had lifted a cup or a page in ten years.

I vaguely remembered, about that long ago, Mr Cadkins

always sitting there with his fat cigar. He counted things.

He was always writing in ledgers. Now, he's gone  -  heart

attack two years ago at 71. Too bad. I only heard of it by

asking how he was. Bill Barelly simply made mention.