"Hi Dave, I was wondering why my short story hadn't been accepted this week? Or the one that I sent the previous week? – Brian"
Dave – normally a patient editor – took a deep breath. He preferred to be nice to submitting authors. How could he break it gently? Brian's stories never hit the word count, read like stream-of-consciousness with no structure at all and were invariably appallingly written.
Dave closed his eyes and made a wish. When he opened them again, a miracle happened: slowly, Brian and his story simply faded away into nothing.