Suddenly a loud voice rang out, calling out in exasperation, “Originality! Are you scaring away the potential consumers again? How many times have I told you to immediately call me over when we have a new face? You’re getting ahead of yourself again!”

        The shadow goggled as an extremely tall figure walked through the door- or at least, tried to walk through the door. It hits its head on the doorframe, cursing as it came to the reception area.

        “We really need to make the doorframe taller, damn it. How is our productivity looking?”

       “We have an average productivity level of fifty five percent, about thirteen percent more than last week,” chirped the receptionist, ignoring both the disgruntled shadow and the tall figure, who winced as it gingerly probed its head.

       “That’s not nearly enough! What is taking our team so long?!”

       “Well, we haven’t been receiving many new ideas lately, mostly just teen romance and spinoffs of other ideas we’ve had in the past,” said Originality (the receptionist) brightly, reading off a clipboard. “At least Dystopia is dying down now. You have no idea how many times the team kept calling me over for that one. It was pretty insane. Why, only last week I-“

        “Will someone please tell me where I am,” the shadow bellowed. “I have been standing here for the last twenty minutes and still have no blinking clue.”

        The figure then noticed him for the first time, scrutinizing him with a gaze not unlike that of a hunter stalking its prey. “Well, well. Looks like you’ve done something right for once, Originality.” Here, he stressed the word Originality for an awkwardly long period of time, making both the shadow and the receptionist uncomfortable. “This one looks promising.”

       The figure grabbed the shadow by the hand, dragging it toward a door that read “Employees Only.”

        The shadow struggled, trying to pull away. “Wait! Where are you taking me? I don’t even know who any of you are!”

        The figure groaned. “Do I really have to do this again? Geez, how useless can my coworkers get?” The figure sighed resignedly. “I’m Explanations. The one you were talking to is Originality. She’s good natured but she can really put off people sometimes. You’re at the Ideas Desk, the heart of the city of Inspiration. We supply ideas to all the different creators in the world – the musicians, the painters, the writers, etc.” The figure sighed again. “Any more questions?”

       “Where are we going?”

        Explanations simply shrugged, throwing the door open wide, “I’ll try to let everything else speak for itself.”

        The shadow’s eyes widened as it saw a stream of machines hard at work, constructing things (the shadow wasn’t sure what else to call them) of various shapes and sizes, putting them into boxes, and sending them all out to places the shadow couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

       “Where are they going?”

        “What is ‘they’?” asked Explanations quizzically.

        “The things, the boxes up there. Where are they going?”

        “Well, it all depends,” said Explanations thoughtfully. “Some go to Dreams, another city not very far from here. The Dreams Department weave ideas they receive into elaborate tapestries of different lengths and colors. Others occasionally go to Writer’s Block, where they are used to construct great big walls that seem completely impassable until someone comes up with a creative way to utilize them. Some go to Music and there they become sticky notes that are constantly rearranged to make stories. And then there’s-“

       “Stop,” said the shadow, bewildered. “I can barely keep up with what you’re saying.”

       Explanations paused, groaning, “I knew it was a bad time to drop that load of exposition… I told her it was a bad idea! I know I told her!”

      “Her?” said the shadow. “Do you mean Originality?”

      “No,” muttered Explanations, “I mean Details.”

       “Just how many employees do you have?” asked the shadow wonderingly.

        “Hm, well we have Plot, he’s the leader of the Story Department in the Ideas Facility,” said Explanations, who was clearly racking his brain in order to remember. “There’s Originality’s sister Creativity, who just started working here this summer, Grammar, who’s not much of an entertainer but is a monumental part of this establishment. Characterization, Setting, Genre, Dialogue, the twins Poetry and Prose-“

        “Can you maybe list your employees without describing them?”

         Explanations ignored the shadow, much to its annoyance, and began counting off on his fingers. The shadow could hear a couple of garbled names before Explanations growled, “There’s no time for this! We’re wasting time!”

         Before the shadow could ask what that meant, a siren began blaring deafeningly, shining bright red lights everywhere. “Code Red! Code Red! All eligible employees please come to the Personification Room immediately!”