Found Out Kitchener
Everywhere you go, you are looking for red envelopes. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern. Sometimes you stumble upon them. Sometimes they seem to come to you. One thing is clear: he is always watching. There is no place to hide.
Sometimes, you swear you see something flicker in your peripheral vision, but when you whirl around, no one is there. Your eyes ache from the strain: of late nights, of ciphers, of looking for another crimson envelope in every crevice, every forgotten place.
That is why, this time, you don’t even believe it at first when you see it. It’s too absurd. You’re sitting at a table outside of the C&D, nursing a lukewarm cup of tea and trying to make yourself care about a problem set. It’s less than a month into the term, you remind yourself. You’d be a fool to stop trying this early.
You stare out the smudged window at the distant balcony that has always taunted you, its yellow and red chairs comically bright against the muddy brown brick of the building. You almost don’t see it at first, because those chairs are now topped with a thin crust of snow. But then – could it be? A smudge of red that has never been there before, below the yellow chair?
You stand up abruptly, shoving your notes into your bag, and fight the urge to run out of the room. Your wild eyes and wrinkled clothes aren’t out of place, here, but some things would be crossing a line. What floor is that? The second? The third? How can you get onto that balcony?
The building’s elevator shudders and creaks as you climb, and you close your eyes, trying not to imagine getting trapped in here. A search up and down the hall confirms you’ve picked the wrong floor, so it’s back on the horrible shaking elevator again.
In the hallway, you peer out the windows, read the name plates on office doors. What are you going to do if it’s a private balcony?
Finally, you reach a door marked “lounge.” This has to be it. You can hear happy voices inside, light music. Before you can lose your courage, you knock.
A curly-haired man wearing a spangled party hat and holding a slice of cake answers the door, looking confused. “Sorry to interrupt,” you say. “Can I check out on the balcony for a sec? My supervisor thinks he lost his, uh, keys.”
Incredibly, he doesn’t question your paper-thin story, but waves you through and returns to the party.
On the balcony, the wind is bitingly cold, and you almost slip on the thick layer of ice that has accumulated. But there – you can barely believe your luck – it is. Taped beneath the yellow chair. The next envelope.