Harriet Boone eyed the file on her table suspiciously. Something about the vanilla stock paper shell and the documents therein put her on edge, although she wasn't quite certain what edge she was on. It was probably quite steep, she thought, perhaps more of a precipice.

She'd come to work this morning to the usual mess; phone calls from concerned strangers, a mess of new information and paperwork to sort through, an unreasonable amount of clerical documentation, irritable and incompetent coworkers stomping too close to her cubicle on the way to the kitchenette for another round of stale coffee.

The morning had been fairly normal for her. The only remarkable difference to her day was the file that somehow gave off a hostile energy, despite being made entirely of paper and ink.

It wasn't that the file was new. It was a bit warped and dated, and had been on the corner of her desk, close to the cubicle wall. In fact, the main issue was that it was, indeed, not new. As far as she could tell it had taken up residency on her desk for so long it'd become covered in a sheet of dust, despite her frequent cleaning sprees. She had vague and blurry memories of receiving it some time ago, but couldn't recall when it was – remembered leafing through it and making notes, although those notes were almost certainly long gone.

Curiously, she'd completely forgotten about it until she'd arrived to her cubicle this morning and seen it tucked away on the one part of her desk that she never really paid any attention to.

And wasn't that a thought in itself?

Harriet Boone had worked in this office for a decade and there was still a place on her desk that she didn't think about. The rest of it was in some state of extreme tidiness, with exception of her out-in file box which seemed to exist entirely in chaos no matter how hard she worked on it and the edge of her desk which was covered in nonsensical knick-knacks that she couldn't part with out of decency's sake. She had places for her pens, her paper, her paper clips, her clipboards and calendar. Even the pushpins on her cork board were in a wonderfully harmonious line for whenever she needed them next.

There was a perfect circle of empty, unused space around the file – arguably great real estate for her growing collection of trinkets Mr. Everett had been giving her in hopes she would 'make herself feel at home.' Mr. Everett had been concerned Harriet would quit and leave the office for the last ten years and had been slowly and none-too-subtly trying to convince her she liked it here.

Jury was still out on that.

The file seemed to be aware of her, teasing her merely by existing. She'd contemplated opening it, but it felt like a heavy curse even to look at it. How had she not noticed it for so long? Had she forgotten it the second she'd received it? And what about the information it contained? Would the person in that file even need her help anymore?

She frowned at the file. Then she frowned deeper when that didn't seem to illicit a response.

“Afternoon, Harriet.” said Mr. Everett, his head peeking over the top of the cubicle wall.

“Afternoon, Mr. Everett.” It came out rather more like a question than she'd intended, but last she'd looked at the clock it was barely nine AM.

“Yes,” Mr. Everett answered, “Nearly twelve-thirty. Is everything alright? You've been sitting here zoning out for a bit. Everyone is a bit concerned. Mostly because you seem to be glaring at a file, and that's not generally something one does with a file. Save, I expect, for the sort of file divorce papers are contained in. I recall doing quite a bit of glaring at one of those.”

Harriet Boone was unsure how to respond, but felt she couldn't take her eyes off the file. What if it disappeared again? Instead she pulled it closer and read the label on the tab.

“What do you know about Amelia Rhydderch?”

“Rhydderch, Rhydderch, Rhydderch...” Mr. Everett pondered, “Doesn't ring any bells. It's not one of our current cases, I'm sure of it.”

Harriet Boone glared at the file more, daring it to make any wrong moves. Then she opened it and scanned over the papers.

“This is from three years ago.” She announced, more than a little alarmed by the dates at the top of the paperwork.

“Is it closed then?” Mr. Everett asked. She scanned the paper a moment more.

“No,” she said, finally, “It was never even checked.”

“And there's a child?” Mr. Everett asked.

“Yes,” she said, “A son. Julian.”

“How long has it been on your desk?” Mr. Everett asked.

“I can't recall,” she said.

“Slipped through the cracks,” Mr. Everett suggested. “An honest mistake.”

“Slipped through the cracks? For three years? It's been here the whole time, and don't say it's my own fault, Mr. Everett. Christine is in charge of case distribution and she's not mentioned it once. Plus, there should be other files? Who called it in? There's not even any notes.”

“Slipped through the cracks, Harriet.” He said again, “If you make a big deal out of it now, we're all going to get in trouble.”

Harriet Boone stood, collecting her brief case and the file.

“Where are you off to, Harriet?” Mr. Everett asked

“They live about forty minutes from here and a check is well over-due.” She said.

“What about the cracks, Harriet?” Mr. Everett asked.

“In Japan they fill them with gold, Mr. Everett.” She said.