The Final Polish (and a Few Smudges)

Arthur Penhaligon hovered over the glowing screen, his cursor a nervous little hummingbird flitting between paragraphs. The essay, a creature he’d wrestled into existence from the tangled mess of his own existence, was almost ready. Almost. The Inner Critic, that ever-present, perpetually unimpressed gremlin perched on his shoulder, cleared its throat with the sound of a thousand tiny papercuts.

“Are you *sure* about that comma, Arthur?” it rasped, its voice like sandpaper on a chalkboard. “It feels… too decisive. Too *knowing*. You, my dear boy, are neither of those things.”

Arthur sighed, a gust of air that threatened to blow the carefully constructed sentences into oblivion. He’d spent weeks on this. Weeks of wrestling with the Muse of Mishaps, who kept showering him with recollections of every embarrassing moment he’d ever experienced, from the time he’d accidentally set off the fire alarm with a faulty toaster in ninth grade to the truly catastrophic incident involving a rogue banana peel and a perfectly good suit at his cousin’s wedding. The Inner Critic, meanwhile, had been a constant barrage of negativity, whispering dire warnings about his inadequacy and the futility of his efforts.