Down This Crazy Path We Go

Guys, I've been killing my darlings. No, the puppy's fine, it's the words. Words like "just" and "as if" and all of the little filler words that help me paint a sentence to the screen and bloat my word count with their needlessness. Really, I'm not sure what I'm saying with "just" anymore. I give it no meaning to the sentence rather than as a filler onto the next word. I was having so much fun with this, I looked up two hours later and realized, yeah, I could use a break.
I turned on Columbo...