Percival Piffle and the Paper-Induced Apocalypse

Percival Piffle considered himself a man of robust constitution, though his constitution was mostly robust against strenuous exercise. He was certainly not prepared for the existential threat that emerged from a particularly sharp corner of an expense report. It happened innocently enough, a casual swipe of his finger across the offending document. Then, a minuscule, barely-there sting.

Percival froze. His eyes widened, fixing on the perpetrator: a pristine, innocuous sheet of A4. "Good heavens!" he gasped, his voice a dramatic whisper. "A breach! An epidermal violation!" He peered closer at his index finger, where a hairline fissure, barely visible to the naked eye, oozed a single, brave pinprick of crimson. "The crimson tide!" he cried, scrambling for the tissue box. "My lifeblood, ebbing away, one microscopic molecule at a time! This is it, isn't it? The beginning of the end!"

He clutched his finger as if it were a severed limb, applying pressure with a fervor usually reserved for defusing nuclear devices. "Oh, the humanity!" he wailed, remembering a dramatic line from an old movie. He briefly considered calling 911, then thought better of it – they’d probably just send a rapid-response ambulance with a single, scoffing Band-Aid. No, this required *his* expertise. He frantically googled "papercut fatalities," "signs of minor exsanguination," and "last wishes for office workers."

A colleague, Brenda, ambled past his cubicle, pausing at the sight of Percival, pale and trembling, attempting to fashion a tourniquet from a discarded rubber band. "Everything alright, Percival?" she asked, already knowing the answer was 'no, not really, but it's probably nothing'.

Percival looked up, his eyes pleading. "Brenda! I've been... *assaulted* by a stationery-related incident! I fear I may be fading fast. Tell my mother I loved her… and tell accounting that the mileage claim was entirely legitimate."

Brenda sighed, reaching into her desk drawer. "Here, Percival," she said, unfurling a tiny, cartoon-emblazoned plaster. "It's a unicorn. It wards off internal bleeding, apparently." Percival stared at the unicorn Band-Aid. He stared at his finger. The single pinprick of blood had already clotted. He felt a sudden, profound sense of both deflation and mild embarrassment. "Ah," he mumbled, taking the plaster. "Yes. The unicorn. A powerful deterrent. Thank you, Brenda. You may have just saved a life... or at least, prevented a very dramatic afternoon." He gingerly applied the Band-Aid, then sat upright, newfound vigor coursing through him. "Right," he declared, "back to those expense reports. Someone has to fight the good fight against financial inconsistencies... and their surprisingly sharp edges."