The Various Office Equipment from Hell
"Jerry, I need you to make another thirty copies of next week's schedule of meetings."
Who was talking? Was it me? No, impossible. My name is Jerry, and it is unlikely that I would be addressing myself with a command such as that. Unless perhaps I was going insane and my alternate personality was starting to take over?
"YOU'LL NEVER CONTROL ME, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!! GET OUT OF MY BRAIN!!" I screamed as loudly as possible.
With a sudden rush of terror, I felt a presence behind me. I reached for the nearest metal object to use as a weapon on my attacker, which means I tore off my belt to use as a whip.
With red mist clouding my exhausted vision and foam gathering around my mouth, I spun around to finally bring an end to my invisible tormentor when he said,
"Jerry? Really? Again with this shit? I don't want to have to talk to HR again. Now pull your... Jesus... pull your pants up and put your belt back on."
Ah, it was my coworker, Tony. I usually called him Anthony for short. He walked away from my cubicle with an irritated, disgusted sigh of good will toward my antics.
I spun around in my computer chair to redownload the file to make copies of, when suddenly my vision was consumed by a devastating, infinite blackness.
"THE VOID IS EVERYTHING... THE VOID IS EVERYTHING... ALL OF EXISTENCE HAS PERISHED!! WE ARE ALL NOTHING!!" I bellowed into the colorless abyss!
"JERRY! Jesus Christ, your computer screen just went to sleep again. Just move the mouse to turn it back on," called Anthony.
Say what you will about that motherfucker, but at least he can keep a cool head in a stressful situation. I moved the mouse and woke my computer up. I navigated our office's database to find the copy of next week's schedule I was destined to make thirty more unholy copies of, consequences be damned. The human body and mind will do anything when pushed to their limits.
Opening the "Print" menu, I set the number of copies to...
Fuck. The residual terror was clouding my brain. What was the number? I'd just had it in my head. How many copies did I need? Was it... 69? 420? 666?
What if it was all three?
"I'M FUCKING YOUR BITCH AND BLAZING IT UP IN HELL, MOTHERFUCKER YEAH!!!" I shrieked as I typed "69420666" into the "number of copies" field on the print menu.
But as Lucifer had fallen from the grace of God, so too was I designed to fall from the grace of the print menu as it disobeyed me, claiming the number of copies was too high. Was this fate? Was my entire a life a mere mockery, a feeble joke for some cosmic comedian? Despite all my efforts, I had been prevented from achieving my goals at every step of the process. No more!
"SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!" I roared as I headbutted the computer screen in a valiant display of defiance. If I wasn't allowed to make 69420666 copies of the schedule, then the accursed machine wasn't allowed to... live.
I grabbed the stapler off my desk and stapled my eyelids wide open to make sure I wouldn't blink and miss a second of my victory over the cruel office machines that dominated my life. Fuck you printer, you don't know shit about how many copies I want.
"Jerry! Holy shit, what the fuck did you do to your face?!" Anthony gasped in a horrified gesture of joy at my victory over the machines. "I just wanted you to make a few copies of the schedule! Oh God, I'm calling 911, just stay here and for the love of God don't do anything else, please!"
The...
...
...schedule?
With the force of a really big hammer slamming down on a screw then rebounding off because you don't hit screws with a hammer because they're supposed to be screwed in with a screwdriver, my jaw dropped in understanding. Despite all my protests against my fate, in the end I had only become a tool of it. Someone else would now be chosen for the deadly task of making copies of the schedule - and schedules, of course, are directions for the future, AKA fate!
"FORGIVE ME BROTHERS, I HAVE FORSAKEN THEE..." I cried as I laid my head on my desk in defeat. The schedules would be printed. Fate would still be defined. And that printer, that fucking printer, would still be sitting there smugly. Watching.
...
...
Waiting.
Originally uploaded on March 25, 2015
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