One hallmark of a good story well-told is the feeling of inevitability it provokes. The way, for instance, that the narrator (and murderer) in Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” must be driven to confession by the maddening metronomic beating of a phantom heart; or the way Reservoir Dog‘s Mr. Blonde has to be blown into oblivion in the film’s final frame. We look back on these great narratives and realize that these outcomes are foretold, that the illusion of the story’s reality is so convincing that they couldn’t have turned out any other way.

Desk 51. Designed by Maurice Blanks, John Christakos and Charles Lazor of Blu Dot.

So what’s this got do with furniture? As the trio of John Christakos, Charles Lazor, and Maurice Blanks of Minneapolis-based Blu Dot might rightly claim, “everything, my son, everything.” So here’s what Christakos, Lazor, and Blanks say on the subject of inevitability: “Our design process is founded on collaboration. Not just among ourselves as we play show-and-tell with concepts, but a total collaboration between pencil and paper, materials and machines, even packaging and assembly. We like to think that the form is almost inevitable, a by-product of the process. Our job is simply to help it emerge as beautifully and as efficiently as possible.” If I might condense this a bit… Just as with good stories, good design provokes a collision between the possible and the probable, and the outcome provokes the same “aha!” kind of moment as good storytelling.

Apropos of this, there’s Blu Dot’s Desk 51, a super-streamlined, ultra-functional piece with a spare and appealing aesthetic that seems just right for our current socio-cultural-technological moment. The desk’s simplistic design belies its functionality. Geared towards eliminating unsightly desktop clutter, it features an extending tray that glides like butter on metal and ball-bearing runners. In addition to providing easy stow-away of that space-consuming keyboard, the tray will also accommodate miscellaneous documents, bills, knick-knacks, and geegaws—anything that you’d prefer be out of sight once the working day is done.

Desk 51 joins the ranks of other tech-savvy work surfaces (check out Novanta and Milk), but the cantilevered aspect of Desk 51 gives it an aesthetic all its own. Attribute it to my over-active imagination, but for me, with the tray in the “closed” position, the aperture that extends along its entire surface resembles a geometricized version of Audrey Two, the carnivorous plant from outer space in Little Shop of Horrors. Perhaps this otherworldly aspect is reflected in the name, which evokes the mysterious Area 51 of government conspiracy fame. Or perhaps Christakos, Lazor, and Blanks are just having a bit of fun, while also planting the rumor of a clean-lined, modern, functional, and aesthetically appealing workspace. But best keep this hush-hush. If word gets out, the government is sure to want it under wraps.