Brian Finnegan hates parties, but tonight the party is for him - and he has to make a speech.
The restaurant the entertainments committee had chosen for the Department’s annual hello/goodbye dinner was an odd one, or so Finnegan thought. Housed inside a tall, narrow box five storeys high that was painted black inside and out, it seemed to Finnegan to consist entirely of a staircase off of which, at each level, a few small tables and their accompanying chairs had been set. The staircase was badly lit so that Finnegan, whose eyes did not adjust well to subdued lighting these days, missed his footing twice on the way up.
He had come from one of the part-time teaching jobs he did to supplement his earnings from his full-time post. After the coming autumn, what he got for the part-time work, together with his meager pension, would be all he had to live on, for Finnegan, this year, numbered himself among those whose time it was to say goodbye...
The restaurant the entertainments committee had chosen for the Department’s annual hello/goodbye dinner was an odd one, or so Finnegan thought. Housed inside a tall, narrow box five storeys high that was painted black inside and out, it seemed to Finnegan to consist entirely of a staircase off of which, at each level, a few small tables and their accompanying chairs had been set. The staircase was badly lit so that Finnegan, whose eyes did not adjust well to subdued lighting these days, missed his footing twice on the way up.
He had come from one of the part-time teaching jobs he did to supplement his earnings from his full-time post. After the coming autumn, what he got for the part-time work, together with his meager pension, would be all he had to live on, for Finnegan, this year, numbered himself among those whose time it was to say goodbye...