years, 213 days, 16 hours prior to that morning in the office, I was sitting on a bench at a wooden patio, just as the evening sky was starting to give way to starlight.

It had been a beautiful day, the world immersed in a gentle, kind heat, not so harsh as to be uncomfortable, but enough that light clothes were more than enough to relax completely.

The kind of weather you get maybe a dozen times in a whole year, if you're lucky.