Let Me Clarify

Photo taken almost exactly one year ago - April 9 2016: Second Floor Stained Glass Window 

A couple of readers wondered aloud - or at least by e-mail - about the import of last week's post. 

If I didn't win the competition for the job I've been doing for the past four years, then what ...? 

Am I fired? Demoted? Shuffled off to some obscure post?

I can't completely answer that question right now. Other people are involved. Announcements need to be drafted and circulated for approval a couple of thousand times. 

But, an old friend has returned from her sojourn in the wilderness. The Ruler and her Advisors got a handful of beans from a grizzled old man in exchange for The Thing. 

As far as she was concerned, that was a good and fair trade.

***********

The Ruler of a small but pleasant realm was tidying up her chambers which had been neglected during her time away.

Chappie, her most trusted Advisor and one-time right-hand-man, was long since gone so there was no one to keep the place in order. Towering, teetering stacks of undone paperwork obscured her desk, her chair and covered the floor. 

The Ruler called for assistance. A young advisor scurried in trailing a great big sack. 

The Ruler did not recognize the advisor but she had seen the sack before.

"Hello," the Ruler said to the young advisor, "did the Wizard send you to help me?"

"Yes'm," said the ridiculously young-looking advisor. "He gave me this and said you knew what to do."

"Indeed I do," said the Ruler. "Bring that over here. I'll show you how the sack works and then you can take it from there."

The Ruler grabbed as much paper as she could lift from the top of an especially burdensome looking pile and dumped it into the sack the young advisor held open.

There was a brief flash. The paper was gone. The young advisor, braced for a great weight of paper, almost fell over.

"Where'd it go?" she asked. 

"Not sure," said the Ruler, "just so long as it's not here. The Wizard likely knows. But the less I know about it the better."

The young advisor, a quick study, did not need to be told twice what to do. She scooped up a pile of paper, dropped it into the sack and moved onto the next pile.

In about a half hour, she was done. There was no paper anywhere, except for one small white envelope on the Ruler's desk that neither of them had noticed before.

"What's that?" asked the advisor. "Was it even there a minute ago?"

Startled because she knew full well that there had not been a white envelope there a minute ago, the Ruler thanked the young advisor for her work and hurried her out the door. 

"Take that sack back to the Wizard right away," the Ruler warned. "No side trips."

The Ruler shut and, on second thought, locked her chamber door.

She went to her desk.

The envelope sat smack dab in the middle of the desktop. Plain white. No embossing or official insignia. Nothing on it but the Ruler's name in the shaky handwriting of the Great Troll, the Ruler's Boss to the Third Power.

The best and worst case scenario for what might be in that envelope was the unicorn the Ruler had always dreamed of.

She figured it would be not be that. There had been no unicorn sightings in the realm for many years.

She sat down. She inhaled and exhaled deeply a time or two.

She opened the envelope.

Inside was a single piece of paper with three words, also written in the Great Troll's shaky script.

"Open the door"

To be continued...

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen