A very creative writer is hired to produce. They can’t get enough of him, but they want more.

The producers were thrilled at his pitches. This guy was the best, and they knew it. They’d keep him happy for as long as he could churn out work. So far, they rewarded him with a house on the beach, a Maserati, and a salary. Everyone was happy. That was until they hired a new CEO who ruled with an iron fist, and who demanded more production.

Once he called a meeting at ten o’clock sharp. When the writer got the email about the meeting, he wasn’t supposed to show up for it for an hour later. The writer didn’t mind, he was sitting in his office at the beach house working on a new show idea. While he worked, the meeting at the office was taking place.

“We have to do something about this writer, Tosco.” The CEO looked around the long, shining, highly polished, mahogany table. Smith, Johnson, Lemay sent an attorney who scratched on a yellow legal pad as the CEO spoke. The other four people at the table sat straight-backed and tense.
The CEO picked up a briefcase near his chair and gently placed it in front of him. His nimble fingers unsnapped the lock and he opened it, hiding his hands behind the opened top. The lawyer watched him, and when he saw the old man hold up a syringe and a small vial, he scribbled hard on the pad.

An hour later, Tosco showed up. His uncombed black hair dangling in front of his brown eyes, and walking briskly to his chair, he said to all of them, “Good Morning, Gents.” Sitting down, he looked up the long table at the CEO. The other people nodded a silent good morning back to him. They knew what they were scheduled to do next, and Bob Maronie got up from his chair and walked behind Tosco as the CEO spoke with a wide smile, “Tosco, you’re doing a bang-up job, and we just wanted to thank you. No wonder they wanted me to come an hour later, Tosco thought.

The door to the office swung open and two caterers wearing drooping, white, chef’s hats walked into the office balancing a thick and decorated ice cream cake. It was chocolate, Tosco’s favorite. The two men placed the cake down in front of Tosco. The CEO dismissed them with a friendly nod of his head. When the door closed, the CEO rose and walked around the table to stand near Tosco. The others stood up and formed a circle around him and burst out loud with a rendition of, “A Jolly Good Fellow.” Tosco’s thin face beamed with a wide grin. Then, the sting in his right arm struck him like a wasp, and he looked at the CEO. The room lights changed colors, and his head spun. Everyone looked like they were standing in front of a funhouse with a mirrored wall. That was the last he could remember.

He woke up strapped to a gurney with what looked like a colander on his head. Wires protruded from it, and his eyes rolled upward. Behind a large glass window above him, the entire team from the production company looked down on him. Fighting to turn his head to the right, and still feeling weak, he looked at the refrigerator-sized machine that the wires from his head led to, and squinted to see a slot much like a printer. A faint hum grew in the room, and Tosco felt his hair rise a bit like iron filings to a magnet. His gaze returned up toward the window, and he watched as the men behind the glass threw curious glances from him to the machine. They jumped in the air, and palms slapped backs when the machine whirred and spit out papers filled with Tosco’s ideas. They were in chronological order and collated. They were ready.

His head felt empty, and Tosco who normally had a million ideas bouncing around in his skull, suddenly felt, empty. He was empty, and drained dry. They kept him around though; it was the right thing to do. Even when he demoted to cleaning up the office, he didn’t mind. He didn’t know any better. He was sucked dry by the machine, and as he pushed the broom around, he just thought that he always was the janitor. Once, they let him play a walk on part, as a janitor of course in one of his productions they sucked from his brain, that day on the gurney.
That made him very happy.