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Your instincts serve you well. You approach the lion exhibit and see the gryphon. The vulnerable young creature is cuddling with its mother lion. It’s a sight that would warm the heart of even the coldest killer. But not you; you’re still experiencing that murderer’s high.
You lock your crosshairs between the gryphon’s eyes, making sure it’s not a casual hang gliding enthusiast this time, and pull the trigger. A shot rings out. Then, nothing. The gryphon and lion simply look up in confusion and then go back to cuddling.
“Congratulations,” says a man in a trenchcoat and sunglasses standing next to you.
“What do you mean? I missed.”
“You fired. That’s the important part.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Agent Dirk Steel, United States Army, Crossword Solving Division.” He extends a handshake. “For the last week, we’ve been watching you, seeing if you were good enough for the world’s most elite top secret crossword solving program. This was a test, and you passed.”
“But I’m awful at crosswords.”
“I can see why you’d think that. For the last eight days we’ve been supplying the New York Times with the hardest crossword puzzles ever created. According to our surveillance, you’re the only person that made it past day three.”
“Oh. So, you know the answer to sixteen down? Definitively?”
“Don’t you see? There is no answer to sixteen down. There was no hang gliding enthusiast. Stove is a hired actor. And your neighbor is alive and well. It was all set up to get you here. To see if you had the calculating, mechanical mind needed to solve a crossword puzzle. Or, in this case, shoot a baby gryphon.”
What you are hearing is that this government hotshot has wasted sixty-two hours of your time with unnecessarily difficult crosswords. In that time, you could have gotten around to repainting your bathroom five times. You could have composed a symphony. You could have watched a hundred and twenty-four episodes of Smut Court while eating two hundred and forty-eight hamsters (assuming a rate of four hamsters per hour, but you could top that if you really tried).
You smash his front teeth out with the butt of your rifle. While he’s reeling from the blow, you grab him by the throat and throw him over the fence into the lion exhibit. It’s feeding time.
Your excursion ends here.
2 years ago • Notes