The Crushed Dandelions screenplay started out better than he had expected given the synopsis that had come with it. Mick finished thumbing through the script while watching the Las Vegas Golden Knights skate their asses off. The Knights had lost in the shootout, which sucked. Just like the screenplay, which had quite a few good components but three-quarters of the way through took a hard right into ludicrous. He had deposited the script on the discard pile, relieved it was an easy no and his tropical holiday was still on deck. He tossed back the remains of his whiskey, switched off the TV, ambled down the hall to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and went to bed.

But was he sleeping? No. The damned script had niggled at him like a splinter trapped under the skin. So he had dragged his sorry ass out of bed and was sitting in his damned study trying to fix the problems in a script he was pretty certain he didn’t want to take on. He had decided to jot down the ideas that were swirling in fragment form so his brain would shut up and let him sleep. In the morning, when he got to the office, Lois could type them up.