To quote Ezra Pound

Winter is icumen in

Lhude sing goddam

edited to get the quote working

31 minutes to go...

...food running short. May have to eat the mules. Sherpa guides getting nervous...the cubicles around us are considered places of evil, or dark magicks and blood. It is only through offering more office kitchen perqs (water and stale xmas cookies) that I can keep them with me. Without them, I am surely lost...in all senses of the word....

My mother is still stuck at work too. She the school secretary. School was dismissed 3 hours ago, but not everyone has picked up their kids yet.

I want to visit Miracleman's office. Perhaps taunting the natives with coffee. And Cheetos.

Yes, I live dangerously.

22 minutes to go...

...Sherpas have finally deserted me, cowardly dogs that they are. I am writing this huddled around a small fire I've started in a copy room. The printer repeatedly flashes its plaintive "paper jam - please clear paper" message, but I will not touch it. I will not have its ebon essence on my fingers.

I will have to strike out on my own. The one mule has developed a limp (it stumbled over a stray Ethernet cable two days ago) and I fear it has gone irreparably lame. I will have to bludgeon it with a stapler. The good news: I can smoke the meat; hopefully it will strengthen me for the trek ahead.

I hear a rustling down the corridor...it may be a Supervisor. I will hide in this cabinet and make my move later...

16 minutes to go...

...Blast and damn! The Supervisor found me in my hidey-hole! Snarling, she sprang upon me, determined to take me back to a cubicle, there to rot. I would surely be there now, flinching like a wounded dog at every shrill scream of the phone had I not been able to blind and confuse the Supervisor with a fax confirmation and a cry of "Is this yours? It says 'Urgent'!" Baffled, she clutched at the paper to peruse it and in the interval I managed to slip away.

But the mules and supplies had to be left behind. I have only my staple remover, a disposable lighter and my wits to guide and protect me.

What is this? An emergency evacuation map! Perhaps I am yet saved. Which stairwell am I near? The "You are Here" dot has been defaced...I shall have to do some scouting.

2 minutes to go...

...this may, perhaps, be my last entry. If any should find my bod and read this, know that I went with as much dignity as I could muster while wearing a loincloth made of a polo shirt and held on with a length of printer cable.

The door to the parking lot stands near. I shall make my move as soon as the District Manager leaves the break-room. Will the cursed man ever finish putting Sweet and Low in his coffee?

He's moving! He's gone! Now! NNNNOOOWWWWW!!!....

It was a long trek, and at the end of it, we couldn't say if it was a success. Oh, we found traces of our quarry--gibbering supervisors, staples strewn acros the landscape--but never a confirmed sighting.

We heard his cry--"Send me ho-o-ome!"--through the gloom, but he's a wily creature, that geek in the mist.

If only he had a Great Dane to carry him home!

Or a camel. . .