Fall of empire

I'm working this job.  I'm at the top of my field inasmuch as you can be without achieving the holy grail of facultyship.  I'm paid about as much as you can be as a non-tenured scientist in academia.  I've got as much responsibility, autonomy and training as you can get in any job.  I come into lab at 10am ish or whenever the hell I please, I can see the sky, the water, and the freeway overpass from a fifth floor window that Actually Opens, and I don't hate that I often work till 1 in the morning.

I can see the stress in the faces of faculty dealing with yet another budget crunch.  I count colleagues departing from academia, only to wait months for a real job, one that bores them senseless.

I am paying enough attention to know the entire US economy is balanced on a tricky little ledge.

Though it's spring the air smells this certain way, like rotting leaves or imminent snow.

We are about to fall and I am going to miss all this.