It was around six–thirty a.m., a full hour and a half before his eight o’clock class on Early Irish Gaelic. He had some papers to grade and some other work to attend to, so he had come in early. The building his office was housed in was the West Theater, an old building on the campus of Trinity College that was well over one hundred years old. It was built of brick and solid masonry, able to withstand the test of time, and always smelled like moldy old stone. Conor had his arms full of his briefcase, laptop and lunch bag as he entered his office suite. The door was unlocked and his secretary’s desk empty; she didn’t arrive for another hour. Even so, there was someone sitting in her office. Destry stood up from the chair she had been patiently planted in as Conor entered the office. His gaze fell on her and he came to a halt, startled. The lunch bag fell to the ground and Destry bent down to retrieve it. “Hi,” she smiled weakly at him, propping the lunch bag back on top of his briefcase.
