Before I knew it, the neck brace came off (its inner padding now reeked of old, rancid sweat) and my rib was as good as new. Morgana actually gave me a tiny round of applause on the morning I managed to pull off five toe-touches without blanching in pain. I returned to work. Percussive Insurance, with its 200 employees, was one of the largest insurance companies in Canada, and I was its HR manager. Very little had changed in my absence. Someone had replaced, without my knowledge or consent, the perfectly serviceable coffee machine in the staff room with a newfangled espresso-dispensing device that looked like a droid from Star Wars. Meanwhile, a couple of supervisors had swapped offices and forgot to submit a personnel update to me for the intranet. Otherwise, the place was as I had lef
