The email hit his inbox at 3:17 a.m. Like most emails from Human-Zone Kidney, it was a masterpiece of passive-aggressive brevity:
“Your Submission Requires Revisions.”
Tonny Rugless Pinchchitte Jr. sighed as he clicked the attachment. The manuscript looked like it had gone through a wood chipper of red comments. Every single one bore the same damning word: “Condemn.”
"They’re not condemning the text," he thought grimly, "they’re condemning me."
The phone buzzed. He let it ring once before reluctantly answering.
“Yeah?”
“Good morning, Mr. Pinchchitte,” a nasally voice said. “This is Alex, your moderator from Random Hassle. I’m calling from… uh… a mindfulness retreat in Colorado.”
“A retreat?” Tonny muttered, lighting a cigarette. “Fancy. What now?”
“Well,” Alex began hesitantly, “it’s about your manuscript. Our content guidelines flag several issues, especially around your, uh… characterization of majority figures.”
“Majority figures?” Tonny frowned.
“Yes, like… married, white, middle-class fathers,” Alex said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your protagonist is described as ‘tired,’ ‘overworked,’ and—how did you put it?—‘suffocating under the weight of societal expectations.’ That’s problematic.”
“Problematic for who?” Tonny asked, exhaling a stream of smoke.
“Well,” Alex continued, “we’re concerned it could be interpreted as sympathetic to, uh… traditional male archetypes. Readers might assume you’re… normalizing their struggle.”
Tonny barked out a laugh. “Normalizing their struggle? You mean, like waking up before everyone else, dying younger, and paying all the bills?”
“Exactly,” Alex said earnestly, as though Tonny had just solved a crossword puzzle. “That’s precisely the narrative we’re trying to avoid. Perhaps you could rewrite it to show how his behavior perpetuates systemic—”
“Let me stop you right there,” Tonny interrupted. “You want me to make the guy who pays for everything the villain?”
Alex sounded genuinely confused. “Well… yes. Isn’t he?”
Alex went on to explain that the Random Hassle editorial board, in collaboration with their AI, Big Condemn, had flagged over 73 “issues” in Tonny’s manuscript.
“For instance,” Alex said, “the phrase ‘exhausted father’ was replaced with ‘benevolent oppressor.’ And your scene where he helps his wife with the dishes? That needs to be reframed.”
“Reframed how?” Tonny asked, already regretting it.
“Maybe add an inner monologue where he’s angry about doing it,” Alex suggested. “That way it highlights his unconscious misogyny.”
“Misogyny?” Tonny nearly dropped his cigarette. “For doing the dishes?”
“Well,” Alex said cautiously, “it’s less about the act and more about what it symbolizes—an imbalance of power.”
Tonny muted the call and stared at the city below. Manhattan was waking up, the usual chaos unfolding in predictable patterns. A garbage truck rumbled past, and a jogger weaved between delivery bikes.
"So, now the guy who wakes up at 5 a.m., pays the mortgage, and dies before he can enjoy his retirement is the villain," he thought. "Sounds about right."
Unmuting the call, he said, “Alex, just to clarify, is there any character I can write about without getting flagged?”
“Well,” Alex hesitated, “we encourage characters that challenge societal norms.”
“So, no white, married fathers. What about a single dad who’s unemployed?”
“That could work,” Alex said cautiously, “as long as he’s an ally.”
“An ally to what?”
“Everything.”
After the call, Tonny sat at his laptop and tried to revise his manuscript. Every sentence felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of condemnation.
"When a man willingly consumes a wisdom shroom, spends years paying for everyone’s bills, and still gets blamed for the downfall of civilization, he eventually learns that the only way to survive is to become his own editor, moderator, and critic."
He paused, reread the line, and sighed:
"Condemn."
Outside, Manhattan roared with life, its chaos strangely comforting. Tonny stood, opened the window, and shouted into the void:
“Oh, Creator, and your legion of editorial angels! I condemn this! Myself, the moderators, the editors—even the algorithm running Big Condemn! Condemn it all!”
Below, a street vendor selling halal food glanced up and shrugged.
