I looked at the typewritten characters on the page dissatisfied with the story written. The content of the tale left me feeling discontented, as if I had been chasing my tail all day. Not a single character possessed any redeeming qualities.

The ducks didn’t duck their heads underwater and the flies didn’t know how to fly. The battery of baseball playing bears had stopped swinging their bats at the same time that the batteries for the animatronic bats stopped working. It was too much to bear!

The protagonist of the story, a mathematician snake, spent his days working as a loan officer at the bank. Although it was rare for him to leave the building for lunch, the adder adder sometimes parked at a National Park, curled under the leaves on a riverbank, plotting ways to build a better life. The window for advancement was closing unlike the stationary window in his office which couldn’t open. A wave of nausea filled him whenever his boss waved a dismissive hand in his direction. He moped around riding his moped.

Refusing to be cast aside like discarded refuse, he often submitted resumes for better paying administrative positions. All the while, he hoped to resume the work from his youth. Working on a combine harvester at a farm combined his love of the outdoors with his desire to make a difference.

While deliberating how best to address the issues in the story, I knew that a deliberate correction was needed. It was obvious even to the oblivious. The time had come to turn my back on the story. With balled fists, I punched at my journal before balling the paper up and backing away from my writing desk. I needed to clear my head.

I booked a dinner reservation, grabbed a book to read while eating, and headed to an Indian reservation casino for dinner.