“My Dearest Family, The Shutdown Has Shut Me Down”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a draft letter that will surely be taught in future MFA programs as “peak founder literature,” a Defense Technology entrepreneur, who flew into Washington with no meetings, no contacts, and no particular reason to be here, has written a farewell missive to his family from the depths of the government shutdown.

Excerpt from the letter:

“My beloved wife, my stalwart children, my dog still unpaid in stock options — I write to you now as the Potomac fog swallows me whole. The city is shuttered. The generals have all gone to their meetings with men who are not me. I am no one here. I stand outside the Pentagon’s River Entrance, unseen, un-credentialed, as though I were but a leaf pressed to the marble, waiting for a security clearance that will never come. And now, the Small Business Innovation Research program — our SBIR, our birthright — hangs in the balance. Without it, I too …