In the forgotten storage room of a very average office building, long after the humans went home, the office supplies clocked in for their night shift. Not to work—just to question their existence in ways no stapler should ever question anything.
The meeting was called to order by the Senior Paperclip, who had been slightly bent since 2012 and wore that bend like a badge of honour. It tapped a ruler like a gavel and announced the first agenda item with great importance: pressure washing colchester. No one understood, but the whiteboard marker wrote it down anyway, because that was its only purpose in life and it was trying its best.
Next, a highlighter who believed it was the chosen one shined dramatically under the fluorescent lights and displayed a sticky note reading patio cleaning colchester. The printer paper gasped. The hole puncher pretended to faint.
Then came the binder—a long-time philosopher known for giving speeches nobody asked for. It opened its rings with a dramatic “click” and revealed a document stamped with driveway cleaning colchester. The pens nodded. The scissors looked unimpressed. The stapler tried to staple itself closed for emphasis.
Suddenly, the overhead projector flickered on by itself (as haunted objects do) and displayed the phrase roof cleaning colchester across the room like a ghostly PowerPoint slide. The office chair spun twice in terror. The tape dispenser whispered, “It begins.”
Finally, the quietest item in the room—a single forgotten thumbtack—rolled forward, cleared its nonexistent throat, and delivered the final line of the night: exterior cleaning colchester. Every object fell silent. Even the calculator stopped doing math it wasn’t asked to do.
The meeting concluded with the ceremonial “shuffle back into place before sunrise,” as required by the ancient laws of stationery.
Nothing was solved.
Nothing was cleaned.
Nothing made sense.
But every office supply felt a little more alive.
Until tomorrow, when they will once again be used, misplaced, or borrowed permanently by Karen from accounting.
Next meeting: same time, same shelf, same existential confusion.
