Lizbette prided herself on utilizing her 45 minute lunch break to its fullest potential every day. She sat on the cool concrete bench in the center of the park opposite her accountancy firm contemplating the duck pond and crunching on a rice cake. Her thoughts drifted serenely as the plump waterfowl dabbled and dove as if they were entertaining her. She thought of order and chaos and how somebody should tell those peacefully disorganized ducks to line up and swim in an orderly fashion. They reminded her of children in a playground. Grubby little humans in need of a stern talking to, a face-wipe, and some rules. Not like numbers. Those things knew their place values. She chuckled at her own little joke.
No. Numbers were too easy. They did what she told them to, they always lined up. What Lizbette craved was an outlet and a challenge. She liked yelling and stomping; shushing others and telling people what to do; making them line up and walk instead of run. She imagined steamrolling little dreams under the inevitable force of reason and immovable objective realism. "It is no difficulty to bring order to order, but order to chaos that is the eternal struggle." She waxed philosophical under her breath. Then suddenly, with the crisp final bite of the rice cake an epiphany. "I should have been a school teacher!"
Startled ducks quacked in alarm and dismay. Some even took flight, albeit briefly, at their lone audience member's uncharacteristic expostulation. They waggled their tails and dipped their heads at the unexpected rudeness, then returned to their ballet firm in the knowledge the show must go on.
