Heart and Soul

HEART AND SOUL

[2524 words. 8 pages.]

AWAKENING

The room itself seemed machine.

To breech the one side door and to step upon the brilliant white of its porcelain flooring took know-how. The room, otherwise, rejected those foreign to its central systems. It was not a brutal, alarm-blaring rejection, as much as it was its deep unwelcoming glare. The corner’s lit when the door was opened, there were no windows, and each surface was pristine and glassy. Opening and entering was akin to unmasking an electrical device and being faced with parts, and pieces, and wires, and components.

If one had no intimacy with these parts, they were inclined by the oppressive unknown to shut the contraption. To leave it alone.

Such was the room with the machine at the centre.

The machine itself wasn’t much larger than an office printer, but alone at the heart of this place it had an immediate importance, an unnerving cunning.

Though, in the end, one must say to oneself that it was, simply, a machine.

The two men who entered through the door were familiar with this concept, as they were familiar with the machine. They entered talking, and the lights shone on, and they brought their dirty soles along the sparkling white flooring and to the machine with both leisure and purpose.

They were both dressed in business casual, with powder blue button-ups and brown loafers. Middle-aged, one just a few inches shorter than the other, with a receding hairline. He laid an arm on the grey top of the machine, and still conversing, assessed the display on the machine’s large protruding screen. After idly pushing a few buttons the machine began its processes, whirring and clicking as it went.

The men chattered as coloured canvas came, bit by bit, through the side arm of the contraption.

At the end of the process warm canvas fell into a tray. The men knew to let it cool and so for a while they continued talking and continued printing.

What was left, after approximately five minutes of office chatter, was six separate two-hundred-and-ninety-seven by four-hundred-and-twenty-millimetre canvas sheets with individual pieces of art. The shorter man picked them up from the tray and shuffled through them one at a time.

There was a short silence between the men as the inspection continued, and the man holding the sheets looked suddenly very engrossed. His messy eyebrows knitted into a frown. He peered over his shoulder to assess the display screen once again.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, the man clicked and scrolled the display a few times, his eyes moved a quick right-left as he skimmed through words and numbers.

“It’s just, the prints don’t match this week’s trends…” He dismissed the canvas to his colleague and leaned over the machine, again fiddling with its display.

His colleague took to sifting through the sheets carefully. “What are the trends right now? Can you see?” He asked.

“Exotic animals, portraits of animals,” He listed. “Simplistic backgrounds, realism, nature.” He turned to retrieve the prints. “Not this—” He muttered, “this abstract crap.”

“Maybe its listing the trends wrong?”

“No,” He sounded stern. “I was just with Carry, these are right. This is what the other companies are printing.”

His colleague hummed, confused and acknowledging this confusion. He watched idly, unsure of what to do as the shorter man ran through the settings once again. “Maybe its broken, spewing ink everywhere?” He looked down at the spread of colours on the canvas, mainly primary colours, spattered on in loose shapes and breaking lines. It looked messy, young, unsure of what it wanted to be, colours with a hesitance. That was his interpretation.

“It can’t be.” The shorter sighed. “These are exactly what it meant to print, but none of this matches the algorithm.” After a short pause he moved off the machine, putting his hands on his hips. “I’ll plug in some manual prompts and then we’ll try again.”

CRITICS

“We printed multiple times. This is the only thing that comes out.” He nearly flung the canvas into the technician’s face, holding it away from himself like a garbage bag that stunk. All the technician did was raise his brows, a false concern. He broke past the office worker and began inspecting the printer, clicking on the display. 

Behind the technician there sounded a dry laugh. “You know,” said the office worker. “We can’t sell this. Our company depends on this and its unsellable.” The technician heard the dramatic slap of the office workers arms dropping to his sides. “This problem is serious, and it does involve your pay.”

Opening the first side tray and lifting the scanner the technician continued to ignore the office worker’s tirade. He found nothing abnormal in these two portions of the machine, the display screen itself didn’t indicate any issue. He scratched away a little red stain in the corner of the scanner before closing it and moving deeper into the machine’s grey functions.

“No ink problems.” He commented, peering inside.

The short office worker scoffed. “Like I said.” Looking pointedly at his taller colleague, who gave a dismissive shrug. “It’s not the ink it’s—it’s—well… I don’t know what it is, but it needs to be fixed right now.”

“Well,” said the technician. He had turned around to face them. “I’m sorry to say it but everything looks normal. All the processes are working as they should be. The only issue here is that this printer isn’t following the trends like its programmed to. It’s definitely a coding issue. Other than that,” he shrugged, “it could use cleaning, there were ink drops in the scanner. You should watch out for that.”

“Can you fix it?” Leered the office worker.

“I’ll call someone who can.”

                               ---

“Honestly? I’ve never seen this before. Something is wrong but… I don’t think I can fix this.” The new IT worker shut his laptop, disconnecting it from the printer.

“So, what now?”

The four men looked to each other for some sort of plan, some sort of answer, as feet tapped nervously on the floor. The failed artworks were strewn angrily across the printer and the tray.

“Disconnect it and try again tomorrow? Or you could wipe it.”

                              ---

Two blows rattled the printer’s frame. “God, what the hell is wrong with this thing.” The office worker hissed. His fist remained suspended mid-air prepared again to slam it down onto the surface of the machine. “We’re already behind on next week’s release.”

“There’s nothing we can do.” Said the other. “If it’s still broken by tomorrow, they’ll just have to wipe it.” He scooped up the failed prints as they began leaving the room. Once outside the prints were thrown into the bin, not dismissively either, but with force, with hatred, with anger.

SPITE

“Do you think it’ll work?”

The tall office worker looked up with a question. In his hand he held the plug tauntingly over the outlet, waiting on it as if placing a lucky bet.

The shorter simply huffed and shrugged.

He smiled. “Well, here it goes.” The plug fit in place just as it was meant to. The office worker stood back up and hurried to stand beside his colleague. They waited urgently before it, in stark gulping silence, for the button to finally flicker on.

Wordlessly, the tall one pressed the machine on and then went straight back to standing in nervous wait. He shuffled and tapped his feet, watching the slow awakening of the contraption before them, in the centre of the very clean and very important white room. At first, it’s display lit an empty white and shortly thereafter produced a spinning grey load icon. Whilst this loaded there was an audible shifting of machinery in the bowels of the grey printer.

A ding alerted the two to the fresh welcoming display. The tall one nearly jumped at the sound. “It looks like everything’s—”

He’s cut short by a starting whir and a sharp click.

“—okay?”

Then another whir and another click. There’s the clear thrum of an electrical engine, the processes inside the machines firing signals along a grass green motherboard.

“What in the hell is it doing now.” The short one hammers it again with a fist, but the racket continues undisrupted, and they are forced to watch, baffled more than anything as coloured canvas ejects from the bay. “Did you print this?” He scowled.

“No.” Defended the other. “No. Yesterday they told us not to print.” He said it rather sharply, his sounds cut short in a snap of anger. His arms had crossed unconsciously, but it seemed his colleague was uninterested with his defence. He was instead collecting the recently printed canvas and gathering it hastily before his eyes. He noticed also that the machine had not yet stopped. The steady thrum of its liveliness continued to bore into his ears. The more he heard it, the more it made him want to grind his teeth.

“More…” Said the shorter, picking up the next print. His voice was calm, a false calm. He ripped up the third print straight from the bay. “More of this—this shit!” He boomed. Spited and scorned he flung away the canvas dramatically to the floor. Before the colour on the fourth could dry he had also torn it from the bay. The red ink stained his fingertips, seeped deep into his powder-blue attire. He wrung it for its colour and dropped it bent, twisted to the tile. “Ugly, vapid colour-vomit from a goddamned printer!”

Shifting nervously the other squeaked, “What do we—”

“Shut it off!” He cried over the constant whir and click. “Shut it down, and the IT will wipe it tomorrow!”

“Yes, okay!” He breathed. The man hurried over himself, finding the glowing white button and clicking. Clicking it for a while. Clicking it until the thrum of life died away with a sad huff and the printer was off, the display black and all its blinkers voided.

“Call the IT.” He placed his hands on his hips. “Call them now.”

OPUS

It was the very morning when the machine was set to be wiped by a group of IT professionals. Of course, the procedure didn’t require professionals, but the workers had insisted. At current it was before morning tea and these trained technicians would not appear before lunch.

Today, the situation with the machine had not halted productivity. In fact, in preparations to change schedule and most likely replace the machine the office work had only increased into a restless fervour.

At this time, before morning tea on a Thursday, whilst most everyone was typing onto a screen in a cubicle under white over-head lights, many things occurred.

That short office worker from previous was mid-word, finger on the keys, when his screen turned dark abruptly. He was startled, even more so when the over-head lights flickered. All at once the building shuddered and the devices clicked in a single great bout of protest. Light from the morning still shone through, but it was dim. The office worker looked to his partner.

“Power outage? Now?”

“Seems like it.” Mumbled the colleague.

Herd confusion set in first. They could all see each other looking around, looking at neighbours, wondering how long the darkness would last.

“Funny, nothing’s happened and they didn’t warn us of anything.” He folded his arms and reclined in his chair.

“How long until—”

“Oh!”

Every screen and every light flickered for a brief moment. The machine’s all seemed to awaken nauseatingly from the brink of a coma.

“You spoke too soon.” Joked the short one. “Can someone check that everything’s running. Wifi?” He watched them, still reclined as a few hurried to fidget with their returned displays, peeking into rooms and flicking lights and pressing buttons.

One woman, he saw, at the door of the printer, briefly stuck her head into the room. He thought to himself clearly, ‘silly girl, the printer’s not even running,’ as he could see the interior lights automatically shine on.

However, instead of quietly shutting the door again as he’d expected, he saw her mouth drop into a gasp and quickly release the handle as if it had burnt to hold.

“The printer,” she looked about in panic, “something’s very wrong with it.”

No one had really heard her, except for him.

“What’s wrong” He called.

“The printer, it’s absolutely destroyed. There’s ink all over the place.”

His colleague immediately turned and frowned. The office worker himself got up very slowly, up from his chair. He made a hesitant few steps forwards, unsure of what he’d find in that goddamned room, with that goddamned printer. The woman looked distraught as she pushed the door aside for him.

At this angle, on his way towards the room he could see nothing but bright white. The sight was comically close to onscreen depictions of the ‘shining light’ at the end of the long black tunnel. Of something biblical or unearthly.

He rounded straight into the room where he could see the clear rays of the burning floor lights and the way in which they cast distant bright-shapes on the porcelain.

When finally, he stepped a foot inside and saw the printer he himself gasped.

“What is it. What’s wrong.” His partner urged. “Let me see.”

He saw the printer at the very centre of the very bright and unimaginably white room. He also saw, a scene of angry blazing colours. Primary colours. A rich red, yellow, blue. This colour was all over the place, and it was seeping and splattered from the centre in a violent, hateful way. Each seething pool of sapphire and crimson and gold felt void, felt world swallowing.

He stood there and felt his eyes dry as he remained captured by the essence of pure—

Of pure—

Pure—what?

What was it?

He felt his gaze sinking into the boiling tar-thick spill along the floor. It was motionless but he felt it moving, encroaching, consuming his brain red, yellow, blue.

The white floor may have been him. He may be the white floor.

The printer itself was splattered in colour. It was thoroughly dead, he could see. Irreparable. The display was a stark unresponsive white, the processes soaked in ink.

The printer seemed unnervingly tragic to him, all of a sudden. He couldn’t help but feel that this was intentional, proof of its unnerving cunning. His eyes widened a gaping white, and he felt tricked, played by his own disregard.

The office worker raced from the room and to the trash can. He threw aside papers and typed letter and dug out from the bottom the thick healthy canvas that they had discarded the day before.

When he returned the crowd had grown. More people began to pour inside. The word, it seemed had travelled branches and the room swelled with unfamiliar faces, all lined up before the printer.

Angrily, he pushed his way back into the room, and finally, there, he held up his canvas. He held it up before his eyes and before the scene and could see finally, the familiar spread of red and yellow and blue.