They look unconvinced. Rowan Farbrother is stroking his half-goatee in curiosity, the Atomic Monkey himself doing much the same. The third man, who pretty much resembles a walking anus, has his arms crossed and seems pretty mad.
"We don't need this kind of crap from you," Rowan states. "We have millions of writers who come in, every day, who have quality-assured content. Frankly, the monkey, the anus and I see no reason in keeping you, especially if you're going to keep up this sort of attitude."
"But it's an integral part of the plot!" I say. "If Joe doesn't do this *unspecified action* then the rest of Andy's struggle is incomprehensible!"
"Find another subplot," the monkey quarrels, inhaling from his cigar and blowing ash over the otherwise clean table. "We cannot accept a story that uses such themes as this *unspecified theme*."
"Well then," I say conclusively. "Maybe I just won't use this script. Maybe I'll re-write. They'll all be happy then out there, won't they? Out there, outside those doors? They'll all be so gladyou made the right choice for them. I mean, why should they decide what they get to read?"
Rowan looks serious for a while. The monkey does the same. The anus is still an anus.
"Very well," Rowan says in consilidation. "You can keep the subplot. Joe may perform the *unspecified action*."
"Thankyou," I say.
"...under one condition," the monkey ponders, looking around the room for more lies to spit at me. "Uh, since you have reinserted the *unspecified theme*, maybe we should remove all the *second unspecified theme*."
"In what way?" I ask tediously.
"I mean, remove it completely," the monkey says again, only as more of a prick.
"Fine," I say. "Alright then. We'll remove it."
That day, outside, I talk to my good friend about the whole situation. He's a good friend. He's also a little sceptical sometimes, though given the situation, he's right to be. He usually has to deal with the censors. This is first time they've sent me, the writer, in there personally.
"But that's the whole point," he argues. "You can't remove one bad thing and substitute it with another. That's not censorship. That's just cutting for time. You should request more time."
"More time," I ask, questioning his logic. "So, what, make it 20 minutes longer than it should be?"
"Yeah," he confirms. "Or, make it a two-parter. Work around it. Keep the story arc intact and sidestep the obstacles."
"Alright then," I say. "I'll go in there and request a two-parter. I thought we had a 14 episode limit, though. That'll push us into a 15 episode series."
"Oh, screw that," he complains. "Get rid of the first episode. Marty won't care that he won't end up getting paid, just split half-half for your episode. Make a deal."
"I thought his name was Jake," I say, but immediatly turn away, as if to imply there is no answer nessesarry. The next morning, I walk into the office, but unfortunately, a brutal beating had rendered the whole censorship team dead. As I walk into the room, I step over puddles of blood dripping from the skulls of the censors as if they were leaking 8-balls. It's a disgusting sight. At the same time, it's comforting.
I can't help but feel that it's somehow my fault. Ah, well. I guess the moral of the story is, if you're going to deal with censors, phone them ahead of time to make sure they don't plan on dying before you waltz into their office like some kind of headless deer with no sense of direction.
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