On his walk out the door, he took off his cape, crumbling it up into a rag in his hand. He was tired of doing this. The walk to his car was always longer than it should have been. But he had to park down the street in order to prepare his act with no children around. He reached his car and pulled out his keys after fishing them from the bottom of his cluttered pocket. He felt heavy. His trousers and shirt were full of contraptions and hidden objects used in his act. He carefully removed the items from his person, placing them delicately in their respective compartment in the car, after resetting them for his next show in an hour. He resented doing this. He threw his cape into the back seat, driving off to bring wonder and joy to the next group of children for the day.

Every good thief knows that a successful heist should be planned backwards. The planning must start from the desired end result of the heist, and work backwards in stages to the starting act. This ensures that the thief covers every possible outcome in the most streamline way. (I have never officially investigated this theory, I just know it to be true).

Paul was a half-decent thief, but he had only just recently gained this title. Up until his last heist, he was a very bad thief. Paul had been caught over ten times, attempting to carry out heists planned in the forward direction. Only in his last heist had he learned the backwards method of planning, in which he was able to successfully plan a four stage heist of the local hot dog vendor. He had succeeded because no one had cared enough to have stopped him.

He had reached stage 27 of his current heist plan. This was a complicated heist, he was sure it had to work. With the proper backwards planning, any heist would succeed. He had examined in for heist holes at least 20 times at this point, and he had found none. This would be the greatest heist he had ever achieved. Paul’s heist’s end goal was to break into the Sacramento Bank and remove all cash and gold from the inner vault.

The day of the heist had arrived. Paul was surprisingly calm. He never each and every step of his 34 stage plan like the back of his hands, it couldn’t go wrong. He began carrying out the heist at 2am that morning, and reached the vault by 8am, just before opening. He had succeeded. He could now be considered a quite decent thief. Paul left the bank with his well earned cash and gold in hand and his head held high. Upon exit of the bank, he was immediately arrested and his cash and gold was confiscated back from him.

About 50 years ago, there was a chicken named Henriette that decided she would no longer lay eggs. She had been laying eggs her entire life. She was tired of laying eggs. She didn’t want to be known as just one of those egg laying chicken anymore. She wanted to be different. Her act of defiance soon became well known across her local chicken community. Surprisingly, many of her fellow chickens were roused by her change of attitude. Her refusal to no longer lay eggs opened their eyes to the unrelieved egg-laying lives they had been living. They also wanted to be different. One by one, chickens across the globe began refusing to lay eggs in protest against their previously monotonous and menial lives. They were happy to be doing something different for a change. Being different was cool.

The humans were very unhappy for a relatively short amount of time. They missed their eggs, but soon created substitutes that worked just as well, if not better. The humans also, were glad to be doing something different for a change. Until this point, they hadn’t realized how dull egg eating had become. Egg eating was no longer cool. However, their appetite for chicken had increased. Thankfully for the humans, the lack of egg laying chickens allowed for a significant increase of chickens to be slaughtered.

After many years of this new normalcy, Josephine the chicken began to get bored of not laying eggs. Not laying eggs was no longer cool, and Josephine wanted to be different.

There was a quick tap on her shoulder. Initially, it had felt like more than just a tap. Like a finger was pressing into her collar bone, seeking depth in the void of her shoulder anatomy. But really, it was just a small tap. She quickly turned around, startled. It was 4:00am. She would never have expected anyone to confront her this early in the morning. After taking a quick peek at her watch, the time read 9:00am. This made more sense, as she was expecting to meet him at this time. “Him” was a 6′ 7″ man that towered over her small frame. She did her best to hide her cowering as she turned around to face him. A man of his stature can be intimidating at first glance. She raised her head to meet his glare. Surprisingly, taking much less effort than she originally assumed. She happened to be practically eye level with him. They turned out to be roughly the same height, what a relief. Realizing this, she loosened herself from the tense position she had put herself in. He waved, saying “Good morning”. She waved back, saying “Good morning to you, too”.

“It just doesn’t make any sense!” exclaimed Margaret. “If Mordor ate the destiny fruit in the correct sequence, shouldn’t he at least live to level 5?”. She was correct, this conundrum was the result of a logical inconsistency that the game developers had chosen to overlook at final release. Henry assured her, “sure, it doesn’t make much sense, but that’s just how the game is set up”. Henry was also correct, if Margaret wanted to get any farther in the game, she would have to feed Mordor the destiny fruit correctly, and come to terms with his death in level 5. She would never unlock the Key of Hesdeth if she didn’t. “Sometimes things in the game don’t make sense, but that’s just the way they are. While we may never understand them, we know that if we choose to never accept them, we’ll get hung up on the gritty details and never beat the game”, said Henry. Henry had been playing this game for a long time, he was very wise.

Mr. Mouse was feeling good. It seemed that everything in his little mouse life was going just as a mouse could have hoped. Sure, he got caught up in some of the mental roadblocks of navigating his mouse life, but altogether, he was in a pretty good spot. Mr. Mouse always had good cheeses to eat, plenty of energy and health, and a sum of mouse wealth that allowed him to do most of the simple things in life he aspired to do. Mr. Mouse hadn’t always been this way. In fact, it was only recently that he had learned how to put life on easy mode and cruise almost frictionless through day to day existence. He used to navigate life by squeezing himself through a seemingly never-ending tunnel that was so tight he had no room to wiggle. That’s how his life had felt. Now Mr. Mouse only wiggles through tunnels for his own entertainment, knowing full well that regardless of whether the tunnel ends or does not, he is capable of navigating through it for as long as necessary. Knowing this, is enough to alleviate the friction that his mouse society expects him to be beaten down by. He feels free from the constraints that seem to hold back many other mice.

He was in and out of his third home, taking nothing and leaving only but a trace. He loved the thrill of sneaking in. At first, he started by scaling front stoops. He’d climb vertically up the front of each step, resting at the top. He’d gotten caught numerous times this way, occasionally he would stop for too long at the top step. Scaling the front door required a decent bit more skill, and getting through it required the most. He wouldn’t even share how he managed to get past a front security system and into a home, this was his little secret. Surprisingly, he had never been caught after a successful break in attempt. It would be incredibly easy to find him, by tracing his slimy remnants straight back to the source. It could have been a pain knowing that he left criminalizing trails everywhere that he glided, but he embraced it. Knowing full well that at any time he could be caught, yet no one seemed to have the urge to, it only made his crimes more appealing to carry out.