He’d finally been ‘convinced’ to start tidying his office. He’d been slowly winding down his practice, getting ready to retire, when they met on that fateful case. He had forgotten what it was like to work with someone…perhaps he had never really known.

Either way, it was kind of fun, although it definitely made life ‘different’. He’d been in this office for more years than he could count, and things had….accumulated… Memorabilia from old cases, books he didn’t really need any more, but hadn’t been able to part with, puzzles he used to assemble between cases, or during especially difficult cases, to distract his hands and eyes and allow him to think. There was that puzzle of a castle, that always reminded him of the ‘bracer’ case. ‘brase.’ ‘He he’, he laughed to himself.

Throughout the course of the day, he brought things down from the top of his bookcases, filtering through them to find things to throw out or put on the kerb. At the end of all of it, he had completely cleared off the top of one bookcase, just enough room to display a couple of prize mementos.

It did feel better. The room felt larger, things felt more organized, there were fewer mental distractions as he sat and looked around as he was thinking.

What he didn’t expect was that he felt taller. He wasn’t especially short or tall (indeed, his non-descript appearance had served him well over the decades), but it turned out that the piles on top of his bookcases, no matter how useful they might be to his filing ‘system’, had been looming over him for so long that he had somewhat shrunk into himself.

As he finished clearing off the top of that bookshelf, he stood in his office for a minute, surveying the results. He felt odd. It was like the room had expanded, but at the same time, so had he. It was the strangest feeling: he felt taller.

But wait…that meant…

He picked up his phone and dialed.

“Can you meet me downtown in 20? I think I have an idea.”

…

“Yes, same place. See you then.”