Old snow globe

The Complete and Total Loser bought this snow globe in 1973 while in New York City with a friend. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were completed in April of that year and, as everyone knows, destroyed in an attack by Saudi Arabian terrorists on this date in 2001.
In this forty-year-old snow globe, they remain standing.

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Back at Work

Today was the Complete and Total Loser's first day back at work since his mother died last week. Remarkable, how ordinary things seemed. Polite expressions of sorrow from some coworkers, some conversations with others. The youngest among them remained silent, which the Loser found curious at first until he remembered that such an event is new in scope to them and even those who've experienced such loss have done so under a filter of youth and their experience is remote from the Loser's. 

He is an expert on loss now, of course. This stage of it, anyway. His expertise will fade over time as he adjusts to the new reality of having only one parent.