Buried By Work

Who: A very overloaded Keto
Where: Medibay office
When: Jeez, I've been more or less absent for too long, I don't even
know what year it is any more...!
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The medibay office was silent. Even the little digital clock that
had lain on the desk (and was now lying on its side against the wall)
had run out of batteries a week ago and now simply sat as a quiet
testament to how quickly dust can gather on many, many sheets of
paper.
A huge pile of which was now lying on the floor. Around the
floor. In fact, a huge pile of which was now covering every square
inch of the floor surface.
Keto had never intended to let the paperwork pile up, unfortunate
pun unintended. So he'd decided to go with the organisational method
that many paper-pushing employees have used over the years known
as "divide and conquer" or, in reality, "put it in lots of little
piles and maybe they'll vanish one by one".
Of course, the downside of this is that they don't, and that the
little piles rapidly grow into larger ones. So you split them into
yet more smaller piles, which themselves grow, and divide, and grow,
and divide...until eventually there's no more room to divide, so they
just grow taller and taller...
Until finally the tail of your laboratory coat catches on one, and
knocks it over.
Nobody ever quite appreciated how much paper weighs, volume to
volume. Keto most certainly appreciated it as several dozen piles of
highly compressed papers collapsed, knocking ointments, furniture,
clock and of course himself flying. Finally, the paper had settled.
And then so had the dust.
All was silent.
The pile shifted. It was quite surprised by this turn of events.
Ordinarily, of course, it wouldn't have been surprised, being mere
wood pulp, but Keto's ointments never had quite the intended effect.
The pulp had been liberally doused with all kinds of liquids, and now
it could feel its sap telling it something was wrong. It hadn't even
remembered what sap was until a week ago, but sentience can grow in
the strangest of places.
Finally, a clump of sheets that had been slowly moving, millimetre
by millimetre under their own power, towards somewhere where they
could eventually have developed into the pulp equivalent of a neuron,
slid sideways and a somewhat haggard looking hand clawed its way into
the air.
It waved uncertainly from side to side for a second, before
smashing itself quite hard into the corner of the overturned desk.
There was a muffled noise from within the pile (which, by now, was
fairly alarmed and wondering if it should find a doctor...the irony
of this being quite lost on it) and the arm withdrew.
A pause.
Then the hole in the pile was widened as two arms squeezed out.
The paper on the outside had hardened until it had an almost shell-
like quality, so it was quite a struggle. Both hands eventually made
their way out, gripped the edge of the desk, and pulled.
It was a severe battle. The pile wasn't quite aware of what was
happening to it, but it was fairly certain (its primitive
intelligence informed it) that creatures hauling themselves out of
oneself was not a normal course of events unless it was a much older
pile than it believed or it was an unfortunate extra in Alien. On
the other hand, the armed creature evidently had a fervent desire not
to remain where it was.
The paper seemed victorious - after a couple of minutes of pressure
without being able to haul itself out, the arms withdrew. Satisfied,
the pile of paper pulp relaxed.
There was a faint click from inside itself.
Some primal terror rose up from the pile. Something in its faint
memory feared that click with a vengeance. It didn't know why...but
then, the word 'lighter' was unknown to it. As was 'smoke', causing
it to wonder why it appeared to be producing black air.
The smoke alarm in the medibay office should have gone off
instantly but, of course, Keto had disabled it. Ointment fumes
sometimes had a...worrying...effect on smoke alarms. So it was that
the sprinklers took more than their fair share of time to activate,
dousing the almost completely consumed pile and causing what was left
of it to become soggy and malleable.
With a roar that was a mixture of anger, terror, relief and "help
my coat is on fire", Keto burst out of the sodden mess and collapsed
across the upside down desk, nearly impaling himself on one of its
legs but too busy breathing in lungfuls of air (and ash and water and
smoke, incidentally) to notice.
A week spent literally buried under his paperwork had not been kind
to him, and he now resembled a rather irritable skeleton with skin
and the faint hint of some sort of musculature more than the
irritable doctor that he had been. Of course, if there's one thing
that paperwork will preserve, it's irritation. Tends to increase it,
in fact.
Eventually, as the sprinklers deactivated and the air cleared, Keto
shakily stood up and wiped his brow.
A week being crushed, suffocated and, he somehow sensed, partially
digested. He was, he had to admit, probably completely out of the
loop of current knowledge aboard ship. Having stared at "Medibay
Acquisition List " had done nothing for his temper, but he
straightened up and tried to look at least partially competent.
Heading for the door, he vowed to burn all paperwork in
future...preferably before it attacked him.
==============
OOC: Well, I confess, I'm without any knowledge of anything that's
going on in BD at the moment...so I figured I'd give Keto an excuse
for being ignorant as well! ;) Anyone care to help me/him find out
what I've/he's missed? Please? :)