A race walk supplants my typical stroll across the campus park for morning coffee. Despite having tenure, I am stuck with classes sprawled across campus, leaving my shirt sticking to my back.

I notice something unusual.

Out of an igneous boulder, a large stick protrudes straight in the air, sword-like. This incongruity makes me pause.

Circling the rock, I determine it is not avant-garde art nor hooligans’ horseplay. I peer upwards to see if a branch could have fallen just so to pierce the rock. Impossible.

I have to rectify this impropriety.

With one loafer on the rock, I brace myself and grip the stick, pulling it out in one fell swoop.

Immediately, bolts of lightning course through my body and vitality and strength I did not know possible gushes within me. A deep clarity of thought whirs in my mind, and my senses surge with renewed intensity. I can detect distress lurking afar.

My watch alarm breaks my reverie. I toss the stick in my briefcase and head to battle first with undergraduates.