Hapless Mang Succumbs to Ancient Foe: Paper

An innocent pile of paper? Or a savage killer? You decide.

Rescue crews rushed to Publishing Inc’s inner-city office yesterday after a filing mishap, which saw hapless employee Hans Fruck buried at his desk by an avalanche of feedback forms, styleguides, checklists, and guidelines.

"Hans was filling out a feedback form," said shocked colleague Delia Norman. "I think he must have been annoyed. I mean, he was trying to conceal it beneath his calm exterior, but all that swearing gave the game away.

"Anyway, when he'd completed the feedback form, he added it to the Himalayan pile on the shelving above his desk. Perhaps it was one feedback form too many?" wondered Norman.

"Perhaps it was the peremptory wrist-snap Hans used to place it on the pile? Or the hammering motion with his fist that followed? Who knows what caused it—but the entire structure began to wobble. There was a dull roar, and it all collapsed like a house of cards or, er, a pile of paper... Anyway, next thing I knew, Hans and his entire desk was covered by a torrent of sliding A4."

"At the time I was petrified," remarked colleague Nell Yanni, "yet there was a savage beauty to all that cascading paper."

When questioned, Yanni and Norman didn't hold high hopes for Fruck's survival. "It hit Hans like a semitrailer," commented Norman.

"That's right," Yanni confirmed, "Hans barely had time to let out a high, girlish shriek before he vanished beneath a flurry of office paper. He was a fighter, though. Even after the rest of his body had vanished beneath a wall of sliding paper, a delicate, stemlike forearm still protruded for a second."

Yanni paused and frowned. "It was strange, because his fingers were waggling... I'm not sure what he was doing. Was it just the last twitches of a failing nervous system? Could poor Hans have been waving goodbye?" she paused and dabbed at her eyes.

"But do you know what I think it was? I think that—even blinded, crushed, and asphyxiated under those tonnes of feedback forms—poor Fruck was still trying to touch type...

"That's the kind of commitment we'd grown to expect from Hans", said Yanni tearfully.

"And now he's gone."

RIP HANS FRUCK
1972-2004