In the meeting, the French language is being discussed as a technical problem.

“They do not have shortened forms for the months.”

Good for them. I think. Not everything should fit by design.

This bitterness did not come quickly, but like the opposite of building up a resistance to a poison. Small doses of idiocy every day built up like a blood clot until my brain inherently knew an idiocy embollism was increasingly imminent.

Several deep sighs became a tsunami of stress, destroying little serene villages which once served as sanctuaries. Externally, I am gone; internally murderously present.

My eyes flicked from the presentation screen to my notes with sniper precision. Every new task slapped me in the face like the glove of a scorned lover. I bit my tongue, pinned from the fight by some unseen political bulwark. Humility unwanted.