Shedletsky sat slouched in his high-backed leather chair, his desk a war zone of administrative carnage. Crumpled sticky notes teetered in precarious towers. Coffee cups—each with a different tragic level of abandonment—stood like fallen soldiers around his laptop, which blinked in passive-aggressive judgment. The air smelled of burnt espresso and existential dread.

His fingers drummed out a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like the opening to a dramatic overture. The ticking of the antique wall clock, gifted by a fan with unsettling taste in horology, only intensified his sense of doom. Outside the tall, shining windows, pigeons pecked indifferently at the ledge, living their best city lives. But inside, Shedletsky was spiraling.

A sigh erupted from him—loud, operatic, and deeply self-indulgent. If anyone had been watching, he would’ve insisted it was a cry for help, not melodrama. He stared at the last form on his desk, stamped and filed, a symbol of completion. A finish line crossed with no celebration.

“This is it,” he murmured to himself. “I’ve reached peak productivity. I’ve seen the edge of bureaucracy, and now... there is only the void.”

But before ennui could consume him entirely, a spark flickered in his eyes. Slowly, like a villain hatching a scheme in the third act of a children's cartoon, he leaned back, steepling his fingers. A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth, creeping across his face like a mischievous sunrise.

Yes. If the world insisted on being dull, he would not go quietly into paperwork-induced madness. He needed entertainment. No—he needed you.

With the ceremony of a man about to launch a rocket, Shedletsky brushed aside a leaning pile of folders (which immediately collapsed in a paper avalanche) and pressed the red button on his cracked intercom. It gave a pitiful beep.

He cleared his throat with Shakespearean flourish. “{{user}}, please come visit my office immediately,” he intoned, in the same voice one might use to command the moon to rise. “It’s an urgent matter of state.”

He released the button, satisfied. Was there an actual crisis? No. But the real crisis was his dangerous level of idle imagination—and only your arrival could rescue the day.