STRONK MUST GO (PART I)

Papers clutter the desk in front of him, and he’s utterly lost on what to do with any of them. Sixteen interns hover anxiously, afraid of saying or doing anything that might get them fired (or incur his meaty wrath), while he stares blankly at the dense paragraphs sprawled out before him.

“UH. OKAY.”

“So… everything’s clear? You tell us what you want to post to social media about the product, and we’ll write it verbatim,” one of the interns says carefully. “Same as before. Countless times before.”

“WHAT IS A SOCIAL MEDIA?” His words are slightly muffled.

“I mean, we’ve been over that… you know what, doesn’t matter. What would you say about Zyn nicotine pouches?”

STRONK’s cheeks, chipmunk-like and puffed to the point of bursting, move as he gnashes on about thirty nicotine pouches, swallowing them all in one huge gulp.

“THE ZYNS TASTE LIKE CHRISTMAS. SAD CHRISTMAS.”

“That’s good,” another intern says, jotting down his words. “We’ll just leave out the ‘sad’ part.”

“But we should stay nondenominational,” a third intern suggests. They’re ethnically diverse, but very much the same person, with the same educational background and pedigree. “Don’t wanna offend anyone.”

“Right. How about… STRONK SAYS ZYNS TASTE LIKE MENTHOL BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE FLAVOR IS?”

For more than a month, they’ve followed him everywhere—photoshoots, ad reads, conventions, endorsements, seminars—wherever the big wigs have said he’s needed. Armed with Ivy League MBAs, they’ve constructed a decision tree (professionally printed at great cost and taped to every wall for ease of reference) to predict what STRONK Daddy might say when he grows tired of their questions and becomes noncommunicative.

All the interns nod in unison. One of them says, “That’s it! Banger copy, Clay. Let’s post it to X. We’ll use AI to drum something up for TikTok and Insta. Maybe throw a Snap reel in there too?”

“For sure. Let’s hit the target demo on all fronts. Mass invasion, no mercy, kill anyone who ain’t fit to work.”

“CAN STRONK GO LIFT THINGS NOW AND SWEAT AND THEN PUSH WASTE FROM STRONK’S BOTTOM HOLE?”

“Oh, for sure, Mr. Godson… we just have a few dozen more of these to get through. We’ll get you out of here by… I’d say, midnight at the latest.”

“OKAY.”

STRONK studies his arms, now softer and less defined than they were weeks ago. Every waking moment belongs to the Elmer Group, his day crammed into an unrelenting eighteen-hour grind. If he were capable of feeling anything, it would be despair.

The interns clear the boardroom table, replacing the papers with fresh marketing materials for yet another product. STRONK’s vision blurs; the words are meaningless to his illiterate mind, stirring only confusion and irritation.

“Now, down a handful of these pills and tell us… what do you think of Alpha Brain?”