I had never entered the White Building before, aside from walking through it on my quest for the land of academia that awaits me on the other side. Pushing open those vestal doors, sighing gratefully at the speckled linoleum beneath my feet, huzzah! This was not common linoleum. This was White Building linoleum, kept smooth by the feet of gods. It all felt so new and bewildering, like a land never charted, a sea never swam. Little did I know, it would also prove to be a demon I had never faced.

This White Building, that I had so callowly struck, is but a mean labyrinth, quite fit for the proud athletes that roam through it, but it made of me a meager cub in a Flavian ampitheatre, faced with walls – oh, the walls! – and faced with gladiators. I had not initially balked at my goal, to find the golden ducks, but my light-heartedness had succeeded me before, and I could feel it licking its lips at the fresh victory before it. “Well this is stupid,” I contended, as my momentum quickly waned. Had the stars truly defied me?

And then, alas: Saw I a table in the distance? Yes, a table with a long, gray counter, beaming at our impending meeting. I ran despite my limp, down the final hallway to the trophy, my eyes gleaming. Absence had surely grown fonder my heart, and images of ducks shone clear in my head.

I approached the table, so close to triumph, and yet still at the mercy of fate. “So do I just take one?” I asked, clutching the harsh edge of the desk, as I had fallen to the floor in awe. “Yeah,” said the desk guard. Huzzah, again!

With my hand, I seized a duck. The plastic so delicately submitted to my palm. I revered its smudges, its life. I looked up gravely from my duck to the clerk. “So who runs this?” I asked, craving the name of my savior. “Uhhhhh, my boss I guess?” she answered, remedying my confusion.

The duck in my hand was a symbol. I had been, of this “giveaway,” the victim and the hero. I had fought a war with desire, and, in the final battle, pulled my sword from its shrewd heart, to reveal its absolute death.

This was the most anticlimactic event I have ever attended.