A Desk Patrol at Night

A tiny, rhythmic ticking caught my attention from behind a stack of sticky notes. I crept across the smooth laminate surface, ducked under the heavy arch of the monitor stand, and found the culprit: a glossy metal ballpoint pen with a stiff clicker mechanism. I threw my weight onto the plunger with both hands. Click! It snapped down with a metallic snap, rolling the whole pen an inch sideways and jolting me right off my feet. Worth it.