Lunch at work

In the dimly lit confines of your cubicle, you find yourself chewing on a soggy sandwich consisting of ingredients that have seen better days. The rhythmic mastication of the sandwich seems to echo through the packed office space, each bite a dissonant note in the somber symphony of bureaucracy.

The oppressive weight of self-consciousness bores down on you, as if the entire world had conspired to eavesdrop on your oddly anxiety-inducing, solidary lunchtime ritual. The hum of fluorescent lights above feels like a spotlight, casting judgmental glares upon your every bite.

Knowledge: Exposure to fluorescent lighting can cause dizziness, eye strain, and migraines.

Logic: Get up and go outside for a cigarette break or something. At least they won't hear you gobbling, you idiot.

With an awkward, uncoordinated motion you attempt to rise from your rickety chair, but your limbs seem uncooperative. Your unsteady legs wobble beneath you, and you flop back onto your chair with a resounding thud. A few nearby colleagues glance over at the commotion, their judgmental eyes locking onto your struggle. Any attempt to stand up exudes even a modicum of grace is met with abject failure.

All your colleagues know that the very concept of poise eludes you for a lifetime. Their eyes say it all.

It’s almost adorable how highly you think of yourself, despite that both your mental state and your moral attitude resemble that slime of uncertain origin that has been covering the bottom of your refrigerator for years. It has a terrible odour and God knows, it will outlive you.

But how did you become such a negative, useless person…? Fate? Genetics? Predestination?

Half-eaten sandwich: All of them, and none of them.

For generations, humanity has been practicing spiritual stagnation in an environment lacking genuine cultural references. This must be the cause.

But who cares? Who the f--- truly cares…? You sigh and take another bite. Your self-consciousness is a constant companion in this strange, detached realm of never-ending paperwork and crippling insecurities.

Still, the suspicion persists and nags you that your coworkers, hidden behind the gray fabric walls of their own cubicles, are forced to listen to your every chew. Their imaginations might be painting grotesque images of you eating, which further amplifies your discomfort to absurd proportions.

In the midst of this auditory paranoia, you can't help but ponder the absurdity of it all. Would this be the reality of the bureaucratic world? The unending tragedy of everyday existence, where even the act of chewing became a performance?

Suggestion: You know why I whisper sinister possibilities into your ears, you know it damn well. Perhaps, just perhaps, this paranoia is *not* unfounded. That the office's drab decor might actually conceal secrets, conspiracies, and clandestine eavesdroppers. We’ll never know for sure.

Volition: I understand your desire to savor every morsel of that meal, but the papers on your desk are long due.

Half-eaten sandwich: Can't we just enjoy this mysterious moment a little longer? The paperwork can wait, can't it?

Volition [Challenging: Success]: There's a balance to be struck here. Enjoying your meal is important, but so is fulfilling your obligations. Remember the importance of duty, of keeping your word. Those papers represent promises made.

Healed Morale +1

Your hand, calloused and scarred from years on the force, grips the pen with the ferocity of a vice. Unconsciously, it carries your frustration, all the bottled-up rage of the past period of time. Your temper is a force to be reckoned with but cannot be contained. With a sudden motion, you press the pen onto the paper that your fingers squeezing with desperate intensity. The pen, already held together by little more than hope and a prayer, can't withstand the pressure. It shatters in your firm grip, sending plastic shards flying in all directions. Ink splatters across the paper, forming a chaotic, Rorschach-like pattern.

You let out a frustrated growl, a primal sound of pure anger. "Dammit," you mutter, rubbing your temples as if trying to massage away the tension.

Looks like that pen was only held together by the Holy Spirit.

When you put aside the broken pen and pick up a new one from the drawer, it feels like you finally have the tool to write your thoughts the way they deserve to be expressed, instead of being limited by that ink-stained, worn-out pen that was the old one.

Its slender cylinder fits perfectly into your hand, and you twirl it idly between your fingers. It’s as if the pen was an extension of your arm, an instrument of authority that dances across the pages with graceful purpose. Your signature, a fluid and elegant scrawl, flows effortlessly onto the first document. Your hand moves with a controlled speed that borders on the supernatural, effortlessly writing your name with quick, precise strokes.

The dossiers and reports sprawl like an untamed fractal, defying order and reason. You stand before an Everest of paperwork, its sheer magnitude is staggering. Unless you can handle this bureaucratic circus just fine, prepare to squander at least an hour of your life on that.

Leaning back in the chair for a moment, sadly stating that today is just gonna be another insignificant day, a monotonous sound flows slowly into your ears and weighs on your mind like a soft, heavy blanket.

It’s the sounds of a photocopier in the office. You can listen to it operating all day long: the paper tray fills up, it picks up the paper, it prints, the printed sheet slides out, it picks up another sheet of paper, it prints again, a print slides out, and this goes on and on and on repeat…

Composure [Hard: Failure]: The sensation hits you like a freight train. You're perched at your cluttered desk, mid-bite into your sad sandwich, and the monotonous symphony of the photocopier reverberates through your skull. Your eyes start to feel heavy, the world around you becomes a haze, and your vision blurs as the copier's relentless hum takes on a hypnotic quality. You’re unable to keep your eyes open. Your eyelids slowly droop, heavy as lead, and your head begins its slow descent toward your desk. You can already tell it's going to be super easy to drift off to sleep, and you're either going to get a full eight hours of sleep or sleep through your entire shift like a baby—whichever comes first.