“Omigod. That’s half-inch drywall.”

“I think we broke his brain!” Pam giggled.

Jim snorted and across the room Karen’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“What did you just say?” Karen asked, quickly appearing by Pam’s side.

“Oh, no, it was nothing,” Jim interjected.

“No, really. I want to know,” she insisted, still smiling, but with a clear edge to her voice.

“Um… Jim and I were just talking about Andy and I said maybe we broke his brain.” Pam paused for a minute. “It was funnier at the time…”

“I’ll bet.” Karen responded dryly.

“Hey Karen, do you want to go get some more chips or something.” Jim asked, sensing the incredible tension in the situation. After all, the woman he secretly loved was currently getting death glares from the woman he was dating.

But instead of diffusing the stess, their little tete-a-tete only seemed to make everything worse. Soon, Karen was asking him point-blank if he still had feelings for Pam.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“That’s what I thought!” she screamed. And with that she made a beeline for Pam.

“You! I hate you! How could you do this to me you little slut! Jim is mine!” She grabbed Pam’s shoulder and pushed her straight back onto Meredith’s desk.

“I’ll show you a broken brain!” Everyone in the office stood around in shock as Karen began pummeling Pam with her fists and then jumping on top of her prone body after Pam fell to the floor. Jim felt like he was in one of those nightmares where you want to move, but it’s as if your whole body has been encased in Jell-o.

Dwight was, of course, the first to step into the madness, but without the time to reach for any of the weapons stashed in his desk, he was powerless to do more than physically manhandle Karen away from Pam.

He thought about trying to knock her unconscious with a swift blow to her head, but that seemed a little uncalled for, and his grandmother had instilled in him the rule to never hit a lady, unless in self-defense or to keep her from harming herself.

Jim rushed to Pam’s side, and with tears in his eyes begged her to forgive him for everything.

“I love you Pam! I always have and I always will.”

But when Karen heard those words a rush of adrenaline surged through her body and with superhuman strength she broke Dwight’s hold, plunged through the crowd and with a few swift strokes of the dagger that she always kept concealed on her person, finished off Jim and Pam both.

Then with a maniacal laugh she rose to her feet. The gleam in her eyes shone with an unnatural pleasure on the rest of her horrified co-workers.

The entire scene was frozen for a moment and then suddenly Phyllis sneezed and everyone began talking all at once. Dwight rushed over to arrest Karen, but in the mayhem that ensued she somehow managed to evade him.

Five months later they learned that she was wanted in twelve states and three years after that she was mentioned in a PBS special on the extreme consequences of stress in the workplace.

Despite the trauma, though, life at Dunder-Mifflin soon resumed it’s usual droning pace.

The cameramen asked everyone how they felt about it, of course, but no one seemed to sum it up better than Stanley.

“That was an overreaction,” he explained.