The meeting began with chairs arranged in a circle of responsibility, which is to say a triangle with one missing side. Nameplates glinted like tiny shields, protecting feelings from facts. Everyone shook hands so long the wrists filed for a ceasefire.

Cindy McCain arrived with the gravity of a weather system named Accountability and said the word “desperation” like it had a passport. Netanyahu countered with “misrepresentation,” a term that now arrives at briefings on a private jet and refuses to check a bag.

Translators nodded vigorously, caught between humanitarian English and domestic Politics, two languages that only agree on the word “later.” The room attempted empathy, but the batteries were sold separately.

“Context,” an endangered species, was wheeled in on a cart and immediately accused of bias. Sources insisted quotes were taken out of context, then escorted context to a safe room for its own protection.

An aide whispered that the delegation had packed a battery-powered convoy tracker but forgot the map to moral clarity. A second aide insisted the press was overreacting, which is what people say when the fire alarm finds its voice.

Meanwhile, NGOs requested corridors and received coupons for a UN-blue tarp bundle with the slogan “Shelter Is a Verb If You Try Hard Enough.” Logistics nodded, which is logistics for no.

To prove nobody was exaggerating, they introduced charts so abstract they qualified as modern art. One graph displayed humanitarian access as a line attempting to tunnel under the x-axis.

Netanyahu repeated that she had misrepresented him, which is a phrase that now comes with frequent flyer miles. McCain replied that the population doesn’t eat clarifications, and the room briefly considered serving them with dipping sauce.

Reporters tried asking questions, but the press conference had switched to a Mad Libs format where the blanks were never filled and the nouns kept screaming. Someone offered “aid” as a verb; security corrected it to “announcement.”

A compromise was floated: desperation would be rebranded as “challenging circumstances,” and misrepresentation would be upgraded to “creative nonfiction.” Everyone agreed that urgency would be defined as “before the next scheduling conflict.”

They ended with a solemn handshake that looked like a temporary truce between forks and soup. The exit door stuck, possibly out of solidarity.

As the motorcades departed, the dictionary limped out behind them, bandaged and brave. It promised to return tomorrow with synonyms for “now,” unless that was a misrepresentation, in which case, please accept its desperation.