The Municipal Office of Unfinished Business
A government office finally offers a proper home for everything you absolutely meant to finish.
WHY IS THIS IN THE FILE?
Nobody took responsibility quickly enough.
The office was on the third floor between Licensing and Water.
Its sign had never been fully screwed into the wall.
People came carrying half-written letters, unreturned library books, applications missing one signature, apologies they had rehearsed in traffic, lamps that needed new cords, and boxes labeled MOM that nobody had opened since the funeral.
The clerk gave each person a number and a yellow form.
“Do I have to finish the form?” a man asked.
“No,” she said. “That would make it ineligible.”
At closing time she gathered the unfinished forms and placed them in unfinished folders inside an unfinished cabinet.
Then she put on her coat and looked at the loose screw in the office sign.
She had brought a screwdriver from home six months ago.
It was still in her desk.
Edie Brake
Fiction writer specializing in institutions, obsolete jobs, unreliable appliances, failed procedures, and people who take the wrong thing seriously.
STATUS: UNRULY
“Normal” was considered and rejected.
KNOWN ASSOCIATES: readers, loiterers, people who should know better.
PUSH THE WEIRD BUTTON
A clerk has been notified. They are furious.