Day 4 - A Day at the Office

Writing prompt - TFR’s Writing Prompt 543: “Dare I ask why someone left an empty coffee mug in the freezer.”

It was a Tuesday. Of course, for the last month, every day has been a Tuesday. At least for billing purposes. At least it meant tacos for lunch from the food trucks at the corner.

Janis liked her job. Finding patterns in the data flow was like panning for gold. Every time she found a sequence, she felt a thrill. Granted, most of the office hated it when a sequence was found. It meant reality had slipped. Again.

Sometimes it was a tiny slip like when the dodo suddenly reappeared after 340-odd years of extinction. Sometimes it was a big slip like when the country of Läknillki disappeared. Employees of the Temporal Interstitial Maintenance Enterprise (TIME) were immune to the time ripples that flowed out to correct the reality slips. They had to be in order to correct the slip, when possible. Some were easily correctable, once the cause was identified. Some could not be corrected, even though the cause was known (see Läknillki). And then there were those whose cause could not be identified.

But to fix the problem, the cause must be found. And to find the cause, the slip had to be identified, categorized, qualified, elucidated, and often just plain old divined. But the first step was always to see the slip. And that was the skill Janis possessed.

TIME dealt with problems like a physics experiment gone awry (yes, you can accidentally create a black hole), unexpected alien invasions (they let the military deal with the expected ones), unintended political assassinations (no one dealt with the intended ones), and lost cats. There was a department for all conceivable and inconceivable causes, each one documented and procedurized. There was a division dedicated to the supernatural causes and one for paranormal sources. Any given day, the agents were working with government agencies, well-intentioned time travelers, vampires, sentient non-humanoid Glieseans, and the Elder Gods. The agents always ranked the government agencies as most difficult to work with.

So while the office was surprised that Tuesday morning, no one was more surprised than Janis. Because she had not seen a sequence. Not even a blip.

Chip came in from the kitchenette and said “Dare I ask why someone left an empty coffee mug in the freezer?”
“What do you mean empty? It’s not empty. The fire drake was overheated. I popped it in the freezer.”
“Tommy, I just found one empty mug in the freezer. There’s no fire drake. Wait, hang on, WHY was there a fire drake in the office? That’s against every policy.”

Tommy rushed to the freezer, sputtering. He was quickly followed by everyone in the workroom. First they noticed the refrigerator was now an Autumn Honey Frigidaire, not the rather nondescript white Hotpoint model it had been at the 10am coffee break. The kitchenette was now on the third floor of their one-story office building. There was no fire drake. But there was a rather large purple tabby cat, sitting on the fridge, cleaning his whiskers.

The office as a single unit turned to Tommy. Or rather, where Tommy had been. Because that spot was empty. Wordlessly, the office turned to Janis. She tried nonchalance, cleaned her glasses, and replied to their unspoken question. “Well, I didn’t put the coffee mug in the freezer.”

At that, everyone, including the purple tabby cat, went back to their desks. And Janis pulled up the data flow.  That showed no patterns.

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