The Hunt

Hand over hand, you make your way through the air duct until you arrive at the end. Unscrewing all four corners, you remove the grate and deftly slip into the dark office. The room is lush, but rumpled. Books are strewn everywhere. Half-empty take-out containers sit blithely ajar. Beneath a jumble of unopened mail, you spy the safe. You try the handle. It works! He must have forgot to lock it! Peering inside, you see the drawer is piled high with cloth-bound books. You lift the topmost volume and start your search…

You put the book down. This can’t be what you were looking for! You pick up another slim volume and open to a random section…

You throw the book down, disheartened. Your eyes canvas the room, and you spy an ipad. You pick it up, prepared to codebreak the machine, but Cornell is apparently too technologically inept to have set a password. You are greeted immediately by another comic…

Frustrated, you hurl the ipad at the unkempt daybed. As you turn to leave, you notice a note pinned to the bulletin board. It says, at the top, “Important!”

You grab the note:

“Sorry chum!” it continues, “It was a metaphor all along! By treasure, I meant the treasure that is the comic hilarity of multi-panel storytelling. And now you are the richer for it! No, thanks required—it was my pleasure!”

You trash the room, pulling down bookshelves and de-tuning musical instruments.