By the third presentation, he was humming along, automatically wiping the threatened slush from his shoes and removing his too-big overcoat in the elevators he rode up to the meetings.

Organization was the key. Repetition was a friend. Repetition was a friend. Commitment didn't frighten him because he was a master of planning. On the fifteenth floor of his sixth meeting of the day, his plans shredded into wisps of cirrusy cotton-candy clouds. As the elevator door opened and he was about to step out, a woman pushed him back in and he saw the doors slide closed behind her.