Hilary slouched over a half eaten mint.  Uncompressed tarball typed away over the hum of the space heater and perl, as always, was touching her own feet and then touching other stuff (usually Hilary’s stuff).  It was all deceptively mundane.

 Ew, said Hilary.  Stop that.    

Her mind drifted back to a moment earlier in the day when Hilary could not believe that she had volunteered to do this, to the abstract idea of a vow of fearlessness and then back to commenting on some drafts for the grad class. 

I’m not sure I’m ready to comment on or evaluate grad student writing, Hilary wondered aloud.  But in her mind she was secretly chanting: 

WTF, Ward?  WTF?  WTF? WTF?

Firefox crashed and it was over. And then the music stopped.  The mint on Hilary’s desk was the hue of a new born cloud covering mountains of papers.