The Universal Key

The Universal Key

I had been on the tenure track for eight months when I let it go - long enough to realize the math didn’t work. "Sixty-five is a solid start," the Department Chair had told me in January, leaning back in a leather chair he bought in the nineties. "With the benefits package, you’re set." In 1999, 65k was a life. In 2025, it was a joke - told by old men who bought their homes for the price of a Buick Encore. But we wanted to start living. We were tired of renting, tired of waiting for the market to crash. So we bought half a duplex ten miles from campus, in an "up-and-coming" neighborhood with an F on every crime map. 250k, 7% interest rate, 52% of my take-home pay.

11:30 PM. Basement office. Cinder blocks painted a glossy, institutional beige. I was grading papers for Writing in the Sciences. Not really my job. I needed the overtime from the extra sections to pay for the water heater that had blown last month. Above me, the fluorescent light buzzed. Not a hum. An angry, insect buzz. One of the tubes was dying. It flickered in a rhythmic, yellow spasm. A stuttering Morse. SOS. Driving me insane. 

I needed to piss. I walked down the hallway, the linoleum sticky under my sneakers, streaked with shades of brown like one of the old-timers had shat himself and people just walked it through. The building was dead quiet. I peed on pee and washed my hands with the foamy soap that smelled like urinal cakes and walked back. 

I didn't think. I just put my key in the lock and walked in. The smell hit me first. Old drool. Richard Klein’s drool. I looked back at the open door. His name was still on the placard, though someone had tried to peel it off. The 'Universal Key' worked. The entire basement had been re-keyed to a single master code years ago to save on locksmith fees. If you lost your key, you just asked a colleague. Klein had taken his books, his awards, even his desk. But he left the radiator. And the thing chained to it.

It was small. Maybe the size of a toddler or a big dog. It sat huddled in the corner, its back to the peeling paint. It was naked, its skin the color of a nicotine stain. And the wings, big useless stubs dragging on the dirty floor. Plucked and pale, like the ones you get at Kroger. It turned to look at me. Its eyes were huge. Blue. There was no malice in them. Just an infinite, crushing boredom. The thing shifted. The chain rattled. I stepped closer. My shoes squeaked on the tile. The thing blinked. Slowly. I looked at the padlock. Then I looked at the key in my hand. The cheap brass key with the “do not duplicate” stamp. I thought about the mortgage. About Thea wanting a baby, and me doing the math in my head every time she brought it up. About how “lucky” I was to land a tenure-track job.

Klein knew. He kept this thing here. Maybe it was the source of his luck. Of boomers’ luck. Or maybe he just forgot about it, the way administration forgets about everything down here. The light in the hallway flickered. SOS. Fuck it.

Maybe it would bring balance. Or maybe it would seek revenge. I didn’t care. I did it because I was angry. I was angry at the interest rates, angry at the flickering light, angry at the smell of foamy soap, angry that everything costs and nobody got - I knelt. The thing smelled like wet dog. I put the key in the padlock. It shouldn't have fit, but everything here was bought in bulk, everything was the lowest bidder, everything was interchangeable.

Click.

The shackle popped open. I pulled the chain loose. It fell to the floor with a heavy, dead clank. The thing looked at its ankle. The skin was rubbed raw, gray and callous. It looked at me and stood up, its joints popping like dry twigs. It stretched those plucked, ugly wings. Then it walked past me. A shuffling, tired gait. It walked out the door, into the hallway, under the buzzing, yellow light. I followed it to the stairwell. I watched it push the heavy fire door open with the weight of its body. Then, it was gone.

The hallway was empty. I looked at the open padlock in my hand. I walked back to my office. Sat down. The light flickered above. I picked up the next essay. "Climate Change and the Economy." Em-dash. ChatGPT. I gave it a B. Then I went home, hoping that whatever I let out would either fix everything or burn it all down before the end of the month.