Little Fidget Gets A Task

Little Fidget finds his way to the Folder Room unaided. He’s excited about the task he will receive, and begins to pace. He runs his hands along the sides of the folders, impressed by their heft and size. "It must be very important that I’m here," he thinks brightly, "There’s an awful lot of cardboard about."

A man enters and steers him to a small, unsteady chair set against the wall furthest from the door. Beside the chair is a bucket that contains a large marking pen, a stamp that says "MAYBE NEVER", another, larger stamp that reads "NEVER EVER", and one enormous stamp with a special pad of red ink that says "NEVER EVER EVER".

On the other side of the chair is a small pile of folders. The man, his instructor, says that when Fidget hears the bell ring (at this point a gesture is made towards the door, and a spritely bell tone is heard in the room), that he is to take the pen and make a big X on the folder. He folds his hands over Fidget's own to show him how to make the X.

Fidget is then told that if he hears a bird chirping, it means he is to use the MAYBE NEVER stamp. This is then demonstrated, and Fidget finds he enjoys the bird chirping sound very much.

The next rule is given that if he can hear a dog barking, that the NEVER EVER stamp should be employed. Fidget jumps at the sound and secretly wonders if the bird knows that a dog is around. Should he ask?

Suddenly, the explosive sound of a car accident fills the room and Fidget is told, very sternly, that if this sound is heard to stamp down hard with the red ink and the NEVER EVER EVER stamp. Fidget, however, has fallen out of the chair and is desperately trying to pull the bucket over his head – his mind a snowdrift of conflicting filter input.

His instructor pats him warmly on the shoulder and repositions him in the chair. "You’ll do fine, no question about that, mister!" the instructor says before clicking his heels and moving quickly towards the door.

Fidget is paralyzed with fear and confusion. He can’t sit straight in the chair and his hands are too slick from fright to hold the pen properly. He picks up the next folder and props it up gingerly on his knees. A moment later, a bell chimes.

Before Fidget can move with his pen, a bird chirps, followed quickly by a series of snarling dogs.

This is replaced by the sound of shattering glass, a woman screaming and impacting metal.

Fidget has responded by being shot out of his chair, and now there is an enormous black line running over the wall and through several piles of folders decaying nearby. Fidget scratches the walls blindly with his fingers, searching madly for his readout. But instead of the reassuring pinging sound, he is submerged in a concussive wave of endless dogs and crashes, ringing bells and birdsong.

A precarious lean-to of folders, their spines already splitting and ripped, slides down and engulfs him. He hastily crawls inside, pressing his knuckles into his ears and repeating his name over and over: FIDGETFIDGETFIDGETFIDGETFiDGET.

He is comforted by the mustiness and the dark, and soon his body goes slack against the din, drawing him deeper and deeper down under the waves of sound until he loses himself entirely in the tide.