The office: Chatter about your job

Listen closely dear and gentle reader to my tale of caution. For in this world there are things electronic and eldritch that are not meant for human kind. Strange knowledge and infernal devices that drive even the most stalwart of soul mad. List to my tale of such an encounter and know it all to be true. Learn and beware of the things that lurk in the office spaces.

As I sat on that night at my desk toiling at documents of an electronic nature I discovered a dark secret. For as I attempted an arcane ritual known as “, THE PRINTING OF DOCUMENT!”, I unwittingly tapped into dark forces beyond the ken of this mortal world.

I had dared to strain the fabric of reality of the mortal realm. I had dared to print using the arcane and dark device known as a Lanier LD 117 in our mortal tongues. Its true name of power and secrets cannot be spoken in the presence of us mere mortals for it would drive us to the darkest depths of madness. Yet I insisted on tempting fate and trusting my fate to this eldritch device.

I sent to print a single seemingly harmless document in the hopes I could harness the power of the machine of madness and woe. But it was fate that I should have unleashed forces far darker and sinister than I intended.

The arcane device woke with a horrifying whir of foul spirits fleeing the toner tray and strangled cry of electronic souls shrieking their lament from within its depths.

The device began make more infernal noises and soon a grating sound of plastic and other parts started its dread keening. From the device spat not the single document but a multitude of pages. At first I thought it would merely be just a few pages and then the shrieking demons and tortured souls that drove the fell device would find respite.

To my horror it continued to slowly churn out hot sheets of unknown content. Knowing something had gone dreadfully wrong I sprang to the devices side. I attempted to halt the ritual which I had initiated. I frantically jabbed at the coloured button whose archaic runes indicated it would clear or stop the ritual. My efforts swiftly proved fruitless. Now more than a dozen pages had been delivered to the tray and the smell of hell and darkness tainted hot toner wafted from the tray.

I rushed to the computer and searched in vain for a control to stop the ritual from its point of initiation. But the runes and gestures of the mouse device yielded nothing. The infernal machine was still slowly churning out its internal sheets. My heart raced and my mind swirled with panic.

Foolishly, I reached a hand out to pluck the bottom most sheet from the pile, longing to see what madness had been called from the depths of darkness to the mortal plain by my reckless hand. Still warm from its hellish inscribing on the paper and bearing the words not meant for the realm of men. My eyes spied the language of damned machines scribed in line after line of the blackest lasered toner.

I felt the world around me swirl and shift as if a dread hand reached through the void to snatch at my soul attempting to wring it from my still living and now writhing form. The madness rapidly passed in seconds but each beat of my pounding heart felt like an eternity. Without gazing at the madness on the sheets in the pile and the ones flowing from the maw of the machine, I carefully lifted the dread stack and placed it back in its place. I did so for fear that doing otherwise would call yet more attention to my follies of meddling.

A new terror gripped my heart. What if the constant skein of vile papers was itself another ritual leading to an unspeakable evil seeking entry to our world? I would be responsible for its clawing and hungry entry into it. Fearing for my soul and those I have charge over.

I searched the runes on the device in hopes one would offer me solace in a solution. Then I spied it. My salvation was just out of site of casual gaze cast at the infernal engine of dread lexicons. For on the side of the machine in soft red and plain runes was the button of power. Without hesitation I toggled the crimson switch. I caught the device just after a sheet had been added to the pile.

The infernal cries of the machine ceased to emanate. No noise or shudder came from the machine. I waited long still moments in the now silent lobby where I had been toiling with the dark and arcane.

I still felt dread because I had to turn the machine back on. The infernal device was meant to run and hum. It would periodically buzz with hatred at in use on the desk. I performed my duty and toggled the ruby switch of salvation back to one of damnation. Thankfully the whirring was much calmer as the device regained its lost power.

As I waited several slow heart beats in trepidation no more fell, hot sheets of madness dropped from the mouth of the machine. Instead a keening sound not of anger or dread but of pleading cried forth. Beep, Beep, Beep. I dared to glance at the runic display. It entreated me to free from its infernal insides a trapped sheet that had not finished being scribed by the dark engine.

I clawedd the casing open and saw there, mangled b the machines own fury at the loss of power another incoherent sheet of madness. Not glancing at the blasphemous words I tore it carefully from the ominous rollers ensuring to remove every cursed scrap and place them in the sacred bin of recycling.

Knowing I could not keep the sheets on hand lest they be instructions to summon devils into our world I disposed of them into the bin as well. I now entrust the few sheets that remain the clerics the help desk.

Even as you read this I have already walked through the pathways of the cubicles of penitence amidst the incense of soldering. There sat churlish monks full of mirth and madness. Their mad chanting of litanies of the fell messages and texts of infernal devices echo strangely in these hallowed cubes. Into their care I entrust this letter and these dark documents.