Mr. Henderson had worked for the Department of Cosmic Contingencies (DCC) for thirty-two years. His desk was a fortress of manila folders, rusted paperclips, and a lukewarm cup of Earl Grey tea. He was a man of habit, and his habit was the meticulous adherence to Procedure.

The world was ending, of course. The "Dimensional Collapse," as the brochures called it, was currently erasing the Midwest. According to the latest bulletins, the three-dimensional world was being folded into a two-dimensional plane by an entity that viewed the solar system as a smudge on a windowpane.

Most people were screaming in the streets or praying in cathedrals. Mr. Henderson was processing Form 12-B: Application for Dimensional Displacement Compensation.

"Next," Henderson sighed, not looking up from his stamp.

The man across the desk was shaking, his tie askew, his eyes wide with a primal terror. "Please," the man sobbed. "My family is in the collapse zone! The sky... the sky just turned into a flat painting! I need the evacuation voucher!"

Henderson looked at the form. He frowned. "You've used a blue ink pen, Mr. Gable. Section 4 clearly states that all applications must be completed in black ink. I cannot process a blue-ink voucher."

"The world is ending!" Gable shrieked, slamming his fists on the desk. "Who cares about the color of the ink?"

Henderson paused, his expression one of genuine confusion. "The system cares, Mr. Gable. If I enter a blue-ink application into the mainframe, it will trigger a syntax error. Then the entire queue will be delayed. Do you want to be responsible for delaying the evacuation of four thousand people because you couldn't find a black pen?"

Gable stared at him, the absurdity of the moment momentarily overriding his panic. He looked around the office. Every other clerk was doing the same thing—stamping, filing, correcting margins, and arguing over the correct phrasing of "catastrophic loss."

"Why are you doing this?" Gable whispered. "Why are you still filling out forms while the universe is being deleted?"

Henderson finally looked up. His eyes were tired, but there was a strange, flickering light of satisfaction in them. "Because, Mr. Gable, the collapse is chaotic. It is irrational. It is a void of meaning. But this form... this form has a structure. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. As long as I am stamping these papers, the world still makes sense."

The building suddenly shuddered. A loud, metallic rip echoed through the office, as if a giant pair of scissors had just cut through the ceiling. Henderson looked up and saw the top half of the room simply vanish. Not fall, not explode—just disappear, leaving behind a perfectly flat, white void.

The clerk in the next cubicle didn't even scream. He just looked at the void and noted, "Oh, dear. I believe the ceiling is now out of compliance with fire safety regulation 402. I'll have to file a report."

Henderson looked at Mr. Gable. The man was now half-flat, his left arm a two-dimensional sketch on the surface of the desk.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Gable," Henderson said, reaching for his stamp. "But since you are now technically a non-three-dimensional entity, you no longer qualify for the standard compensation package. You'll need to fill out Form 88-C: Application for Flat-Surface Residency."

Henderson stamped the paper with a satisfying *thump*.

"Next," he said, as the void reached his feet.

*** OTMES_v2_Code: [M1:5, M3:10, M5:6, N2:0.7, K2:0.4, TI:45.8, theta:225°]