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A Fable about Crisis.

2:34 a.m. on a dreary drizzly Tuesday, the publicist's cell sounds, "Ding-Dong! Ding-Dong!"

She opens it to the dismaying tones of a panicked agent. "You've gotta help me! It's my author! She's doing an alphabet book for children. It's beautifully illustrated. She's taken care of 'A', no problem. But now she's stuck at 'B'! A euthanasia society's backing the project."

The publicist glances blurry eyes at her pale-green LED clock-face. Two-thirty-five. Early tomorrow morning, really. As far as she could recall, even with expected cancellations, her appointment schedule was already overloaded. On the one hand, this dependency of agents is the wellspring of her professional success. On the other, though. Why should she take on extra burdens?

Maybe sensing a hesitation, the agent asks, "You have a problem with the euthanasia association?"

"Not at all," replies the publicist. "My feel is that we just steer her to a public library!"

"Guess so. . ." grudges the agent.

Somewhat irritated, as the publicist snaps closed her cell, she asks herself, "Anyway, what on earth makes me an expert on the alphabet?"

Moral: Simple solutions have no source.