Six Appliances

A The cartridge on the Slopbox, and its first run-and-gun: run, jump, throw. Six machines were left on overnight, and the apprentice goes after them in whatever order seems wise: the kettle in the kitchenette, the desk fan in the drying loft, the laminator in the stationery cupboard, the shredder in the post room, the sewing machine at the mending table and the floor polisher in the open plan. Each place has one trouble of its own: steam jets, a gust, hot rollers, paper that sinks, needles, and a floor too clean to stand on.

The apprentice starts with a tin of loose washers to throw and takes each machine’s trick once it is off: steam, a gust, a laminated sheet, strips, thread and polish. Each is the one thing another machine can’t abide, so the order is the puzzle. A draught cools the kettle, damp jams a laminator, laminate chokes a shredder, paper blunts a needle, thread wraps a polisher’s pad and polish takes a fan’s feet out from under it. A toaster, a clothes horse, a tape gun, a post sack, a pincushion and a water cooler are in the way, and each place hides a fuse in a taped box. Last is the six-way lead behind the bench, which all six were plugged into. Someone has put a Slopaganda poster up by the sink. Nobody owns up to leaving anything on.

Like everything else here, it was made by a machine.