#cloppy

Thank you senpai !!! * hugs *

Clippy always feels a tug of excitement when Lavinia slides a few sheets of cool, white paper between her legs. No, not that kind of excitement! I don’t know what you do when you slide paper between your legs, but for Clippy it’s work. It makes her feel Really Useful, like that little train engine she used to love when she was just a tiny, unbent scrap of wire watching TV while her mom held down the fort on Lavinia’s desk.

Today, she grips the paper firmly between her knees and prepares for the rough landing she’s sure to receive when Lavinia tosses her back onto the desk. Instead, she rides the crest of a smooth flip through the air, to bounce against Lavinia’s thigh as she walks away from her desk. Clippy can barely contain her excitement. A field trip! She hopes it’s to Ms. Jenkins’ office. She loves to stand rigidly at attention while Lavinia’s boss examines the stack of papers. When she praises Lavinia’s work, Clippy swells with pride. Lavinia never thanks her, but Clippy can tell by the way she adjusts her over the papers to sit just so that she understands how much depends upon a hardworking paper clip. She must feel grateful, even though she never says so.

The lights get brighter and Clippy hears voices and the whir of machines. Her blood runs cold. She’s in the copy room, where they torture staples with pliers and turn paper clips out to fend for themselves! She squinches her eyes shut and clings to the paper as tightly as its matte surface permits, bracing herself for the inevitable burn as Lavinia jerks the paper away. If she’s lucky, Lavinia will hold her in her palm while the machine works. She’ll get hot and damp with sweat, but soon it will all be over. Lavinia will replace the paper and they’ll return to the office. She’s pretty good about that, but Clippy has seen what other people do, and heard horror stories of clips being tossed into a little cup near the copier and left to starve in an overpopulated prison of forgotten wire. Or, worse, of clips that have fallen behind the copier and never been seen again. They say at night you can hear their screams.