Mundane Work

Transcript of recording- 121 GLB-AM-1203██-14:31

Priya: (leaning back in her chair, twirling a pen) “Aman. Aman. What’s your deal?”

Aman: (doesn’t look up) “Deal?”

Priya: “Yeah. You’re like… the human equivalent of beige wallpaper, no offence. But last week, the coffee machine started bleeding, and you just… plungered it. Like it was normal.”

Aman: (stamps another permit) “It was clogged.”

Priya: (snorts) “Clogged with what? Demon espresso? (leans closer) And don’t think I didn’t see you ‘fix’ the printer when it started screaming Latin. You used a staple remover.”

Aman: (monotone) “Paper jam.”

Priya: (throws hands up) “You’re impossible! (pauses) But also… weirdly good at this? Like, how’d you get Mrs. Carmichael’s cat out of the ceiling tiles after it… merged with the HVAC system?”

Aman: (finally looks up, dead-eyed) “Ladder.”

Priya: (stares) “…Right. (mutters) Ladder. Sure. (sighs) You know, sometimes I think—”

(The office lights flicker. A spreadsheet on Priya’s monitor glitches, cells filling with glowing runes. The air tastes like burnt copper.)

Priya: (panicked whisper) “Aman. Aman. The budget report is… alive?”

Aman: (pulls a USB drive labeled “NORMALCY PROTOCOL” from his drawer, plugs it in. The screen dies with a whimper.) “Virus.”

Priya: (wide-eyed) “That wasn’t a virus! That was— that was magic! Or a hack! Or—”

Aman: (handing her a stack of forms) “Double-check these zoning permits. Page 7 is missing a signature.”

Priya: (defeated) “…You’re infuriating.”

(She slumps at her desk. Aman’s phone buzzes—a text from --------)

Priya: (calling after him) “Where are you—”

Aman: (over shoulder) “Fire drill.”

Priya: (to herself, staring at the dead monitor) “…I need a new job.”

Note: Priya has been unable to find a new job and, in this economy, cannot afford to quit. Refer to HR for positivity training and try to keep her away from Aman. She has expressed distinct discomfort at his presence.

Note: Get Aman to go through his “A Warm and Welcoming Workplace” training with HR. Again.

Note: Priya has been sniffing around again. It seems her curiosity has been piqued. Enact protocol 12-A.

Note: Aman has skipped HR training again. Please inform him that any more skips (reasons valid or not) will harm his bonus this year.

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Somewhere, out there, in the vast, wide world, there is a man currently stuck underneath a mountain of paperwork and empty coffee mugs. Actually, there are probably hordes of people stuck underneath paperwork, but this story isn’t about them. He sits in an office that very well might be a stock photo. Aman’s cubicle is a purgatory of fluorescent flickers and synthetic carpet that clings like molasses. The air hums with a dissonant choir of printers and shredders, punctuated by the water cooler’s arrhythmic glugs. No windows pierce the eggshell walls; time is dictated by a clock set perpetually twelve minutes late—a petty rebellion by a manager long devoured by monotony. The office reeks of lemon detergent and existential mildew, a scent that clings to the soul. The lights flicker in a pattern just shy of natural, casting shadows that twitch like insect legs. While the rest of the workers in said office feel their soul sucked away, would you believe me if I said the man was happiest here? Not happy, mind you, not by a long shot, but he was not miserable.

Aman sat back down at his desk, sighing loudly. He never made a complaint about any of the regular work, but this wasn’t an average appeal or incident report. In this unremarkable office, in front of a man so dull and ordinary he was considered boring for a civil servant, sat a stack of papers that glowed faintly in the now-dark office. If you listened closely, you might hear the sound of laughter, or screams, or glass shattering echoing from the papers. Some smelled of rot and decay and looked like they would fall apart at the lightest touch, while others twisted and folded when not in sight and others still bled and screamed at being held or written on. Yet, the man didn’t give them a second thought. He gathered the papers into a neat pile and sighed, “It was this, or work at the DMV.” From his desk, he produced a seal. By all measures, it was perfectly ordinary. Its handle was wood, its body was metal and if you put it to your ear, elevator music played. The seal’s muzak was “Girl from Ipanema”—Aman’s least favorite. He tolerates it. Aman merely holding the seal in his hands caused the papers before him to quiet. Serial numbers on its body, invisible to the naked eye, begin to glow like glyphs. The cocktail of smells and sounds emanating from them suddenly halted, as if someone turned off a tap, but the faint glow remained, as if rebelling against Aman’s grip. They could be restrained, but they would not be silenced. Aman sits amidst the chaos, a monolith of mundanity. His desk—a controlled disaster—hosts a shrine of bureaucracy: tax audits from sentient constellations, zoning permits for liminal alleyways, and a coffee mug (“World’s Okayest Apostle”) that brews existential dread instead of coffee. He sips it black.

Aman settles down in his cubicle. Tonight would be a long night.

Various applications and forms both grace and blasphemies his table. The vast majority of them are from The Liminal, with various requests (Aman rejects all propositions from The Liminal on principle. They are never good). The headliners of this round are a petition to change all “Taco Tuesdays” to “Nacho Nudesdays” (it doesn’t deserve an explanation), some sort of affidavit written entirely in poetry, seemingly attesting to how “Everyone thinks the Liminal is the BEST”, written in what appears to be crayons. The Liminal’s request for “Nacho Nudesdays” is stamped DENIED with a footnote: “Violates Ordinance 12-C(Public Decency) and 45-F(Taco Integrity).”, the affidavit was also stamped VOID due to the clear forgery of signatures and official seals and the 1982 Standardisation Act (use of an unapproved writing material). The cherry atop the stack was a desiccated, eyeball-sized fruit that hummed ‘EAT ME’ in Middle English. The Liminal’s sense of humor was as stale as the office coffee.The fruit, too, was shredded. Procedure is procedure, and it’s better to be safe. In conjunction with those requests, more routine paperwork fills the table. Ledgers on crop rotations, human sacrifice and feasts, another permit application to rot the fields, a few documents detailing recent profits and tax returns and more generic paperwork like a zoning permit for “Liminal Alleyway #621 (Addendums to be added: No Loitering, No Time Travel, Seriously).”

As midnight bleeds into the clock’s lie, Aman stamps the final form. The office sighs, the hum settling into false calm. Somewhere, a door creaks open. The Liminal’s laughter echoes down a hallway that shouldn’t exist.

Aman doesn’t look up.“Friday,” he mutters, and sips his dread.

With the main portion of his work complete, Aman moved on to his field work. Well, field, but mainly just the office. Constantly being around divine documents has caused some incidents around the office and Aman’s job description also includes dealing with them. During the day, a shredder had started spitting confetti that read “HELP ME” in dead languages. It was probably where that intern ended up after being sucked into the printer’s shadow. Not that anyone but Aman noticed. He simply put an “Out of Order” sign in the day and he began the dirty work in the night. Aman opened the hood of the shredder, finding a mangled and grotesque abomination of flesh and machine. Eyes, teeth and orifices where only gears and metal should have been. Aman methodically disentangled tendons from toner cartridges, humming along to the elevator muzak. Aman rolled back his sleeves—a motion perfected over 37 identical incidents—and began plucking teeth from the paper tray. The shredder gurgled gratitude. Or indigestion. This was the third time this month and cleaning out the fluids from his shirt. It also stank to high hell and his coworkers had avoided him like the plague for a few days after each incident. For the best, really, it probably was the actual plague. In a completely ordinary way, Aman managed to separate the intern from the machine and get his parts back in order. It was through some interplay between duct tape, wiring and a handy manual Aman had bought after the first incident. The intern simply stepped out of the office, muttering apologies for staying back so late, being met with Aman’s apathy. He didn’t have time to chit-chat. The air vents had some sort of creature infestation and his coffee had turned into an unidentifiable black sludge. Both things he would have to deal with. Oh, and he would need to staple The Liminal’s new hallway shut. Don’t forget to do that. (He forgot)

It should have been an ordinary night. It was an ordinary night. Except for a dime-sized visitor. A little glass butterfly. They often visited Aman, in that regard its appearance was normal. Aman always preferred they come after-hours anyways, as they had the tendency to erase the existence of mortals that saw them. Aman remembers colleagues who never existed. He invoiced the Promised a hefty fine for each of them. No, the unordinary thing was the message it had. Not a direct message from the hidden god as usual, but a recording.The butterfly’s wings reflect Aman’s face—fractured, flickering, older than it should be. “Butterknife. Sector 12. Tick-tock.”

A post-it on Aman’s desk now read: “Re: Missing Butterknife. Last seen: Sector 12. Query: Why does it always smell like burnt toast?"

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Aman, he who is strangely mundane

Over the taxes he holds his reign

Forms upon forms

I wish they were torn

And he were the one stamped “LAME”

• NOT The Liminal

I promise :3

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Form 9-B-1

Incident Report

Officer present: Aman █████ █████Officer number: ██████████09

Badge code: 1███09J Date:███

Information class: Strictly Confidential

Incident type: Anomalous Hallway, Long Term(TD-30-2) Encounter

Involved parties: Aman █████ █████, Priya Ajay Singh

Damage caused:

Summary

Minor structural warping (Hallway L-12). Recommend reclassification to ‘Temporary Non-Euclidean Workspace’ per OSHA guidelines. Budget request for extra staples: $███.

Physical- The fabric of reality near the hallway seems to be frayed and definitely unstable. Caution is advised when approaching the affected area. The hallway itself is a standard class L-12 and has an approximate area of █████ sq ft.

Mental- The mental health of intern Priya Ajay Singh was severely impacted by the incident as she claims to have spent thirty years within the space. She disappeared █████ days ago, but time dilation is common in class L reality warps and is not a cause for concern. She has since been deferred to HR for counselling under “work stress”. It is also advised that she be given sick leave from work for a few days and told to avoid hallways. It is likely she will leave the organisation shortly, file under “Routine Attrition”.

Corrective measures taken:

The immediate remedy is to use the staplers to try to close it shut but due to their direct creation from The █████, it is likely that it will only temporarily hold the tear. Long term solutions to mend the tear would involve contacting The ███████ as well as continued staples from the ███. I have already sent out a request to The ███████ and am currently awaiting a reply. Other than that, multiple “wet floor” signs have been strategically placed to prevent accidental entry into the hallway as well as hide its mimetic presence. I will monitor the situation and update as required. This will cost approximately ██████████, invoices will be sent to The █████ but it is likely that they will not respond so I have also instructed Financial to mark it as a loss and take the tax benefits.

HR RESPONSE

Employee reassigned to Accounting. No memory of event. Per Protocol 12-AF, do NOT discuss hallways. Quarterly reassessments of mental health scheduled. *See Trauma Package- 091 (Trauma Suppressors for a More Productive Workplace) and Trauma Package- 014 (So You Think You Saw a Wormhole)