Breaking: Puff the Magic Dragon Trades Purpose for Paycheck

Holding a flask and a listless gaze, there he sits. The once lofty and noble Puff the Magic Dragon now drags on a cigarette and slumps in his desk chair, his tail sagging through a rumpled suit.

“Wasn’t supposed to be this way,” whimpers Puff as he stares out at a sea of cubicles instead of the actual sea where he lived just 6 months earlier.

After falling on hard times, Puff was forced to give up his life’s meaning of playing with Jackie Paper in lieu of pushing papers for an entry-level position inside a governmental accounting agency.

“There I was, frolicking in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee when – BOOM! – my rent shoots up. I knew a guy who knew a guy who got me this gig, but next thing I know I go from cave of wonders to mountain of spreadsheets. Where’s the meaning in that?”

Like so many of his co-workers, Puff offered suggestions to improve office morale and give his work more purpose. But they were met with little interest from management. 

“I’m all, ‘Hey, how about we travel on a boat with billowed sail and make kings and princes bow?’ But noooooo, why command the skies and make pirate ships lower their flags when you can salute the monotony of endless audits?” lamented Puff.

Sources close to Puff report that at the time of this printing, the once-magical dragon was found in the break room adrift in a tidal wave of existential dread, while simultaneously recounting his previous existence before being lost to discussions on budget allocations and ‘optimizing fiscal strategies.’