One Writer...Nine Editors

Like an unruly child, the article I put to bed keeps popping up again. Each time I am more peremptory with it; the first few times I tolerate long rambling discourses from the various reviewers on detail and context and underlying messages, entertaining these potential changes in direction as I might smile benevolently at a small child's suggestions to be allowed to stay up late, sleep in my room, etc. But over time, I allow the course of the story to deviate less and less. I make smaller adjustments, spend less time composing tactful replies to my editors (who, after all, are responsible for the story's refusal to go to bed; they are the loud siblings who are playing some game thundering up and down the stairs, giving the toddler ideas). My vision for the story hardens. As it peeks nervously out of its bedroom for the umpteenth time, I bellow, "Into your bed! Now!" and it vanishes. I hear its feet scurrying back across the floor, then moments later a squeak of bedsprings and rustle of covers. All is peaceful at last.