The thing I see you jotting down begins with this: “Coming out of a Sunday (but not quite into a recognizable Monday), four accountants are each hurting their left arm while playing croquet.” You will further state, “The game starts during the afternoon, and the accountants keep playing a continuous round of croquet—one ungodly long contest—with each player refusing to consider the wooden posts as anything more than reverse-direction indicators, to be struck and then otherwise ignored.” You may also suggest—in other words, this is optional—that the occasion of the accountants’ gathering is not a company picnic, and nor is it any kind of prelude or public response to something pastoral (like, say, that absurd Arbor Day we all used to celebrate as kids in elementary school, when we’d go outside and squat down in reverence next to the same pine seedlings a lot of us had earlier pissed on before the day’s classes had begun).
But I don’t want you to fail to acknowledge that the accountants’ get-together is outdoors in its entirety and relatively festive “for a stereotypical gang of number-crunchers.” The fact each participant hurts her or his left arm Sunday afternoon or evening may seem to foreshadow the fact that no incident—indeed, no single thing—will likely bring the contest to a halt, though in truth, of course, these players—like croquet players everywhere—cannot endure extreme environments (such as the dreaded outcome from an accurate hurricane warning, or the looming, tragic aftermath of having loitered for months about a place of pestilence). But apparently, the persistence of these particular players can accommodate a steady, dull ache as well as approaching darkness, so I do want you to keep mentioning throughout your written account that “Nighttime will be coming in in its entirety in just a little better than an hour from now.”
But I don’t want you to fail to acknowledge that the accountants’ get-together is outdoors in its entirety and relatively festive “for a stereotypical gang of number-crunchers.” The fact each participant hurts her or his left arm Sunday afternoon or evening may seem to foreshadow the fact that no incident—indeed, no single thing—will likely bring the contest to a halt, though in truth, of course, these players—like croquet players everywhere—cannot endure extreme environments (such as the dreaded outcome from an accurate hurricane warning, or the looming, tragic aftermath of having loitered for months about a place of pestilence). But apparently, the persistence of these particular players can accommodate a steady, dull ache as well as approaching darkness, so I do want you to keep mentioning throughout your written account that “Nighttime will be coming in in its entirety in just a little better than an hour from now.”
