Arthur Pringle was a Grade 4 Clerk in the Department of Cosmic Sanitation. His job was simple: he processed the "Disposal Requests" for the Galactic Hegemony. He spent his days in a cubicle the size of a coffin, stamping documents with a heavy, brass seal and sipping lukewarm synthetic tea.

The request for Earth arrived on a Tuesday, tucked between a request to vent a nebula and a complaint about a malfunctioning star-gate.

Form 12-B. Subject: Sol-3 (Earth). Status: Redundant. Reason: Biological contamination and excessive noise pollution. Action: Immediate Consumption by the Void-Siphon.

Arthur frowned. He had a fondness for Sol-3. He enjoyed the way the humans wrote their poetry—so earnest, so desperate, so utterly convinced that their tiny lives mattered. He decided, in a rare moment of rebellion, to delay the process.

He moved the file to the "Pending Review" pile. Then he moved it to "Further Investigation." Then he accidentally dropped it behind his filing cabinet. For three centuries, Earth survived simply because Arthur Pringle was a mediocre employee.

However, the Hegemony's audit system was relentless. During a routine quarterly review, a Senior Auditor noticed the missing file.

"Pringle!" the Auditor bellowed, his voice a series of clicking mandibles. "Why is the Sol-3 disposal overdue? The Void-Siphon has been idling in that sector for three hundred years! Do you have any idea how much fuel we're wasting?"

Arthur stammered, trying to explain that the humans had developed a fascinating new form of jazz music. The Auditor didn't care about jazz. He cared about the quota.

"Inefficiency is a crime, Pringle," the Auditor clicked. "Since you enjoy the Sol-3 biologicals so much, you will be transferred there. You will serve as the 'Welcome Ambassador' for the first ten seconds of the consumption process."

Arthur was teleported to the surface of Earth in a flash of blinding light. He appeared in the middle of a crowded street in New York, wearing his beige clerk's uniform and holding a clipboard.

The humans looked at him with curiosity. Some asked for an autograph; others tried to sell him a hot dog. Arthur looked at them with a profound, heartbreaking pity. He knew the schedule. He knew the coordinates.

"Hello," Arthur said to a passing woman. "I'm sorry to inform you that your planet has been reclassified as 'Recyclable Waste'."

As the sky began to tear open and the Void-Siphon descended, Arthur didn't run. He simply sat on the curb, took out his stamp, and marked his own forehead with a single, final word: *Processed*.

*** OTMES_v2_Code: [M1:5, M3:10, N2:0.9, K2:0.3, TI:41.2, theta:225°]