THE BUTTERFLY CLAUSE
A Comedy Series of Alternate Bureaucracy
Nigel Pratt used to inspect fire extinguishers for a living. He was very good at it.Nobody has ever been more disappointed to find out this was preparing him for something else.Somewhere between a boot sale and a very ordinary Tuesday, Nigel inherited a kettle.It is white. It is scorched near the base. Its whistle stopped working before he ever got it.And every so often, when it reaches exactly the wrong sort of boil, it opens a door to precisely wherever reality needs him next.Not to save the world.Reality has a much better funded department for that. Way more photogenic and considerably worse at actually fixing anything that matters.
Nigel's job is smaller. Make sure a woman misses her bus. Stop a man ordering the wrong sandwich. Ensure, for reasons nobody will ever explain to him in advance, that a specific parking space stays empty for exactly one morning.He is bad at the job in exactly the ways that make it work. He fails at every single thing he's actually sent to do, and somehow, sideways, by accident, through means no official report has ever successfully explained, the thing that actually needed to happen happens anyway.
FILE UNDER: NIGEL
Somebody upstairs would very much like to stop filing it.
If you've ever finished a Douglas Adams novel and immediately wanted another one exactly like it, you're the reader this was written for.
COMING SOON
Join our the mailing list to stay updated with all the action from the Ministry, Nigel Pratt and Co!
Every world begins with a single question. Every story begins with a choice.
© Frank Perez. All rights reserved.