The Department of Mistakes

Phillips entered the reception hall of the Divine Bureaucracy with a small brown box under his arm. Phillips was best described as nondescript, he looked identical to every other agent thronging through the entrance. He looked to be around forty, with brown hair and brown eyes, probably weighed in at around one hundred and eighty pounds and was five foot and ten inches. To put it another way he was completely average. Phillips was proud of the fact that he live his life at the apex of every bell curve, he knew that everyone else in the office felt the same and that was fine, individuality wasn't his thing.

         He strolled across the lobby to the front desk and placed the box down on the counter, the girl behind the counter was neither attractive nor ugly. Phillips was strongly considering engaging in a romantic liaison with her ever since he'd read a report that said the average man had slept with a colleague.

         “Where does this get filed?” He asked in an abnormally normal voice.

         “What is it?” The girl replied. Phillips reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of pink paper, he flattened it out on the top of the box.

         “It says here that it is,” Phillips stopped for a moment as he read something with genuine interest, “an invisible brick”

         “Breach of the basic physical laws of reality... Sub-basement eight.” The girl replied.

         “Thank you.” Phillips gave an average sort of smile and headed to the elevator.



         It took several minutes for Phillips to secure an elevator heading down and when he did he rode it alone, he'd only been down to the basements on a few occasions before, nearly all of them were used for some form of long term storage. Sub-basement three was the lowest he'd gone before  which was used for the dead file archive.

         The ride seemed to take a very long time, and just as Phillips was about to get frustrated the journey ended and the doors slid open. As Phillips stepped out of the doors he was taken aback. He was standing at the top of some stairs near the ceiling of what looked like the most enormous warehouse he'd ever seen. It went on further than his eye could see, everywhere there were huge metal shelving rigs covered with all manner of strange objects.

         “Ah Mr Phillips, you'll be here to drop off the invisible brick?” Came a voice from below, Phillips jogged down the stairs to find himself face to face with very strange individual. The gentleman was wider than he was tall but he wasn't fat just very short and squat, he had a shock of blue hair and a green moustache and was wearing a pink evening gown. “I'm Smith” he said sticking out his, Phillips grasped it an shook it his eyes wide and his jaw slack. Smith seemed to notice his expression “Yeah, has that effect on most people when they first see it, you usually work in Karmic Alignment?”

         “Yes, I'm filling in for Thompson in Physics Regulation... he got nastily mauled by an angry Schroedinger's Cat.” Phillips thought for a moment. “I hope you don't mind me asking but how do you know so much about me?”

         Smith reached over to the shelf next to him and picked what looked like a magic 8-ball. “Completely accurate, and doesn't just do the normal answers. Think of a number, any number”

         Phillips thought for a moment. “OK, got it.”

         “What number is Mr Phillips thinking of?” Asked Smith while vigorously shaking the ball, he stopped and looked at the answer. “Pi”

         “That's incredible, but it's impossible, shouldn't exist.” Phillips stated.

         “Exactly, that's what this place is for all the mistakes live down here.” Smith replied “I mean look at me, ever seen an employee here who looks like this?” Phillips shook his head “Even the damned room is infinite which shouldn't happen. On the plus side, it gives the unicorns a place to wander.”

         “How long has this all been down here?” Phillips asked.

         “Forever.” Smith replied. “Which again is impossible so it itself is part of what it's used to house. Now I'll have that brick if you please.” Smith said pointing to the box under Phillips' arm. Phillips passed the box to Smith. “Now if you'll follow me I'll need to get you a receipt for this.”



         Phillips followed Smith through the shelves with wonder, every object seemed to be endlessly fascinating, there was a Rubik's cube that kept changing the colour of all of its squares. A softly humming jar labelled simply 'NOISE'. At one point he saw a small village sat on one of the shelves the inhabitants of which were working together  to try and open a beer sitting nearby. There were self-flipping coins, a sofa lecturing some cushions on existential philosophy, a few belligerent chess pieces and at one point Phillips what looked like a tiger shaped block of static run between two rows.

         The eventually arrived at a small counter Smith reached behind it pulled out a pad and stamp he slammed the stamp on the pad and handed Phillips a full receipt with time down to the nanosecond on it and handed it to Phillips. When Phillips looked up Smith and the counter were gone, and he realised he had no idea of how to get back to the stairs. He started to panic, he spun on the spot and found the stairs right behind him, he was standing exactly where he'd came in.

         From somewhere deep within the stacks Smith watched Phillips run up the stairs towards the elevator. He cackled to himself “Well that got him good a freaked out.” Smith climbed onto a small motorcycle. “He seemed far to interested don't want him visiting again, might interrupt the fun”

         “Good thinking” The Motorcycle replied and with that they accelerated away.