“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.
Tonny Rugless Pinchchitte Jr. was born into a family of self-proclaimed intellectuals in Greenwich Village. His father, a professor of “Post-Marxist Aesthetics” at NYU, spent most of his career deconstructing the semiotics of cereal box art. His mother, a librarian with a talent for euphemisms, could transform “bankruptcy” into “financial recalibration” with a straight face.