The final farewell party

A WhatsApp exchange...

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Riquito: You retired two years ago. After 30 years. Why did you go to the graduation party?

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Basil: The cherries in the garden. I wanted to see the god of rice come down to sit in the cherry trees and tell them it’s warm enough to plant rice now.

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Riquito: What rot.

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Basil: Well, OK. I saw it as my final farewell. And I still had a grad student.

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Riquito: Did he show up?

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Basil: Actually no. He’d told me he wouldn’t. But in a sense, that was a relief. I didn’t have to spend all the party with him. Instead, I could mingle.

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Riquito: Mingle?

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Basil: With people I hadn’t seen for years and years. Oh, and perhaps it was fortunate you weren’t there. The new dean offered me your job. I thought he was your friend.

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Riquito: I’ve lost it?

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Basil: Well there were mutterings. In the order of, “Well he’s never here.”

_________

Voice-over

And the band played on...

So many overseas leaves. So many sabbaticals. Not all work can be carried out remotely. Absence often doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Quite the opposite in fact. But when you have been retired for more than a couple of years, and you turn up at a function, incumbents are mostly perplexed. Some are unsettled. The band played stirring numbers though.

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