Many ambivalent returns

"Mayor Duff L--- commented that W---- and his staff had taken the prospect of running the airport at a profit from a pie-in-the-sky fantasy to a distinctly feasible horizon," said the reporter's final line at the local newspaper.

Leave them wanting more, he thought. Who can possibly get enough quippy wordplay in mundane municipal board meeting stories?

He took his child to say goodbye to her friends at the preschool. She played like it was any other day. The now former reporter suppressed his emotions as best he could. 

A sad man casts a long shadow.

When the farewells were said and the blame mislaid for a bathtub that was most certainly that same color when he had moved in, all that was left was to pack all the possessions that had accrued in the 900 square foot apartment into 360 cubic feet of rented box truck cargo space and stoically haul them down from the mountains and across the vast plains of U.S. flyover country.

Boop boop be doop.

During the drive his old coworker sent a message saying the main office was quite cross with him, as river rafting companies were all pulling their ads in the wake of his articles featuring underpaid, discontented guides and a Marxist environmental lawyer.

Much too much to do now. The tying up of loose ends in the old place. But more importantly the ambitious launching into innumerable projects in the new (old) place.

Defeat and retreat are preludes to rally and counterattack.