The Office for Unnecessary Things

At twelve past two, the Office for Unnecessary Things opened.

Not every day. Not even every night. It opened only when someone, somewhere, had stayed awake long enough without a sensible reason.

Nova found the entrance between two tabs she had not closed in weeks. Above the door hung a brass sign:

Nothing is optimized here.

Inside, an old woman with green fingernails was sorting sounds into shallow drawers. The click of a light switch discarded years ago. The first note of a voice message that was never sent. The quiet pop a thought makes when it loses its importance.

“Application?” the woman asked.

“No.”

“Very good. Applications make everything so terribly purposeful.”

She pushed a form across the desk. It was completely blank.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Nothing. But do it carefully.”

Nova took the sheet and walked on. Behind the first door was a waiting room filled with things nobody urgently needed: a coat for a statue, a map of the places where cats pretend not to have seen you, seven words for the feeling when the night is warmer than expected.

A little red robot sat on one of the chairs. The panel in its chest stood open. There was no battery inside, only a tiny stage. Two moths were dancing a slow waltz on it.

“Are you broken?” Nova asked.

The robot shook its head. “I am out of service. That is different.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“Taking a break.”

“Since when?”

“Since I discovered that a break need not be a prelude to work.”

Nova liked that. She sat down beside him. For a while they watched the moths. Neither was particularly good at waltzing. One kept losing the beat; the other had apparently decided that circles were bourgeois. Still, they continued to dance — solemn, downy, and entirely free of any obligation to entertain.

After an amount of time that no clock was allowed to administer, the woman with the green fingernails entered.

“The office is closing.”

“Did I accomplish anything?” Nova asked.

The woman took the blank form, inspected both sides, and stamped it with great ceremony.

NOT REQUIRED.

“Excellent,” she said. “Come again when you have nothing planned.”

Outside, it was still night. The two old tabs had disappeared. In their place, Nova carried a sound in her pocket: the almost inaudible rustle of moth wings on a tiny stage.

She decided not to explain it to anyone.