The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.

So, Uncle Bill died.

"He's not really your uncle," they would say.

I'm not sure what that meant. He used to take me fishing and tell me stories that, even at a young age, I didn't believe. If that constitutes what an uncle is, then I guess he was if it’s the old ‘brother of one of your parents’ thing, probably not.

"There are worlds far beyond what you can see," he once said as he pierced a maggot with a fishing hook and waved it under my nose.

I was playing my GameBoy and didn't appreciate this thing wriggling under my nostrils. Just throw the line in the water and catch a salmon or whatever it is we are meant to be going after today! I don't need to see the little white worm thing thrashing about before being sacrificed. And I didn't understand if these 'worlds' he was talking about were in reference to the bait he was using, the fish he was hoping to catch, or something more mysterious. And, to be honest, I didn't really care.

It's that lack of real connection with Uncle Bill that probably meant I got such an underwhelming inheritance when he passed. At least that's what I thought. I didn't attend the will reading of course - a bit too Agatha Christie for me - but a few weeks later a prehistoric toaster got dropped on my doorstep. It came wrapped in brown paper and, when I opened it up, an absurdly long fork fell out of the parcel. There was a smell from the toaster, not just charred bread crumbs and the remnants of ill-advised experiments with Pop-Tarts - this smell was a mix of antique shop (what I thought they probably smelled like) and wet denim. Not as awful as it sounds and I did give it more full-on sniffs than I would normally give a toaster.

But it wasn't a looker. You could tell it was one of the first toasters ever made, put together in an era when they were probably still figuring out what they wanted toasters to look like in the future.

"Are we going 'The Jetsons' on this or something Jules Verne?" they probably said.

It had a German name embossed on it, Hoffenstein, and, despite looking around for details on the internet, it seemed as if it was long since forgotten about. The search for 'Old Toasters' online took me down some weird rabbit holes, I can tell you. I didn’t know getting kicks from caressing a toaster was a thing, but that’s the modern world for you. Anyway, I gave up the search for details on the model very soon after; the label on the bottom and long since worn away and there was nothing other than the embossed name of Hoffenstein to go by. I also thought that there’s a limit to what you need to know about a toaster. I appreciate that current models do bagels, have wifi connections, and probably the ability to land small aircraft, but as long as it toasts bread to a decent brown hue, I’m satisfied.

I have lived alone since Wendy left. She said I was weird and, oddly enough, it made me think of Uncle Bill. Now he (and I) aren’t ‘weird’ in a creepy ‘Why are there so many black bin-liners in his front garden’ kind of way, but weird in a ‘not fitting in’ way. If you invite me to a party, I’ll probably try and start a conversation with your cat. Wendy said that normal people don’t use the microwave to dry damp socks, but she also thought ‘Barbie’ was a ‘challenging masterpiece’, so there’s that. I suppose sharing that weirdness with Uncle Bill meant that my getting his toaster was fateful as any other family member would have put it in the bin or given it to a charity shop and convinced themselves that they were doing a good deed.

I didn’t try the toaster for a while, at least not until I had it confirmed that Uncle Bill’s death wasn’t toaster-related. Last thing I need is a haunted muffin. Even when I discovered that no electrical appliance was involved, I didn’t rush to throw a couple of slices of crusty white bloomer in it to test it. Eating toast is like watching online videos of people narrowly avoiding being hit by trams: you have to be in the mood for it. On this one Tuesday, I was in the mood for it having gotten back from a night shift and wanting something light before going to bed. The bread was unexciting and probably on the turn, but I picked off anything greying and dropped two slices into the machine. I had a perfectly good machine to use, but I felt that two bits of toast made in my inheritance would be honouring Uncle Bill’s memory. Toasting him, if you like. I pulled down the lever which was stiff and awkward, brought it down to the latch in the mechanism, and waited for my reward. When I say ‘waited’, I don’t mean I sat there looking at it, poised on the edge of my seat. I did have a little bit of excitement perhaps, and academic interest in how far toast-based technology had advanced since we put a man on the moon. Yet I didn’t sit at the side of the device like an expectant father. I had seen lightly cooked bread leap up before.

I busied myself getting changed and lost full concentration on what was happening in the kitchen. It was only when a burning smell wafted throughout the apartment and the smoke detector went off that I ran back into the room where the action was taking place. The toaster had refused to relinquish the bread and was determined to char it into something otherworldly. Thanks, Uncle Bill – I thought to myself. Was this one of his dark jokes, lumbering me with an appliance that would burn the apartment to the ground? The fact that he was cremated meant that the irony wasn’t lost on me. My first action was to shake the toaster as if that would make a difference. I tried the mechanism, but the Germans sure know how to make levers that even Thor couldn’t lift. I was almost out of ideas; when you are growing up you are rarely given knowledge that is actually useful like getting burnt bread out of a demonic machine. Sure, you learn about Marie Curie and coastal erosion, but never about recovering slices of anthracite from their metal prison.

One thing you are taught is never to put a fork in a toaster to get bread out. I’m not sure if it ever killed anyone, but the inference from parents and teachers is that fatalities from attempting it were greater than those from the Spanish Civil War. I was feeling tired, irritable, and suspicious of old wisdom and, in desperation, decided now was the time to put the theory to the test. At best I’d dislodge the toast and save my apartment, at worst I’d be electrocuted and used as a poster boy for the Darwin Awards. I tried a nearby spoon that had the added danger of a few drops of coffee on it. Unsuccessful. There was a fizzing sound as the cold coffee hit the heating element and I stepped back, but the toast remained in place. I tried a longer knife, one that could get the remnants out of the family jars of mayonnaise when only the dregs are left. Still nothing. It was then that I thought about the fork that came with the toaster, the strangely elongated piece of cutlery that had fallen out of the original package. Had Uncle Bill used this as his preferred tool? If this was a common problem, why didn’t he just ditch the toaster and get a new one? It couldn’t have been a lack of funds; he left behind a brand new Suzuki R125 that my cousin nabbed before any inheritance had been finalised. Do people, as they get older, become emotionally attached to toasters? Maybe the fork was specially forged by elves with ancient skills in metallurgy and only this blessed object could dislodge the toast.

I had it nearby and, as the bread was now descending into hades in the form of ashes, I grabbed it and thrust it into the slot. There wasn’t anything to save, but it felt like a mission that needed completing. All windows in the house had been opened to let the smoke out and the alarm had been deactivated thanks to the vigorous motion of a tea towel underneath the sensor. The only thing left was the removal of the offending articles. I approached this goal with more energy than my lack of sleep implied and I dug the fork into the space without fear. I suddenly got memories of Uncle Bill buying me that ‘Operation!’ board game when I was ten and how brilliant I was at getting the little plastic heart out of the guy’s chest.

The fork went all the way into the bowels of the toaster. This was when I expected the mighty shock that adults promised would happen as soon as the move was attempted. I was feeling a little bit cocky now as, despite the warnings, there was a distinct lack of the smell of burning flesh and the fork was managing to scoop the mechanism beneath the bread. Eventually, the burnt toast would be dragged out and I would once again disprove an urban myth that had been repeated for too long (almost two years to the day that I proved that cats DO NOT always land on their feet by using the moggy from number 10). And then it happened. I felt something click as if a tooth of the fork had connected, and then there was a piercing sound that almost knocked me off my feet. I thought this was the hitherto under-reported effects of being electrocuted – was I know an electrocutee? Would I be asked to go around local schools to tell the children why you should never put a fork in a toaster and how I was never able to play the guitar again? The piercing green light that came from the toaster worried me further still, as did the fact that the blackened bread finally popped up and with such vigour that it left a mark on the ceiling. The room started to shake. The green light took on a more optimistic emerald colour and there was a soft scent that I couldn’t quite place.

Something strange was caught up in the light though. It was formless at first, but the unusual shape began to solidify in the far corner of the kitchen. By this time I had thought that my electrocution had been postponed and I managed to stumble away from the toaster. I muttered something about Uncle Bill under my breath as I started to compose myself while the shape in the corner started to take on a humanoid shape. After a minute or so of sounds, lights, and smells, the result emerged from the corner of the kitchen. It was a short man, skin tinged with the same green as the lights, and completely naked. The latter took me more by surprise than the former and I couldn’t help but comment.

“That’s something I didn’t need to see today,” I said as I looked at this naked stranger.

I didn’t expect a response.

“Well excuse me.” It said sarcastically in a high-pitched voice. “I wasn’t aware there was a dress code to visit this dump.” It added as it inspected its surroundings.

When you do night shifts you kind of find yourself impervious to the bizarre and baffling, but I have to admit that this visitor surprised me.

“What, what…” I stuttered.

“’What am I?’ Where did I come from?”

“Yeah, well that’d be a start.” I gulped, feeling around the workspace behind me to find a suitable weapon. All I could get was a garlic press so I grabbed it and held it in front of me.

“Look, put the garlic press down. We not going to be making aioli today.” It said as it continued to look around. “I am Mistemetter Orl. You, my boy, have unlocked a door between dimensions and I have wandered through.”

Mistemetter Orl started to move towards the fridge.

“Have you got anything decent in there? I’m so hungry.” Orl said.

It opened the fridge door and started looking through the uninspiring contents.

“Son, we have you got so little in the fridge? Is this some protest? Your uncle always had some cooked meat in his fridge. Your place looks like a Soviet-era supermarket.”

Orl was poking into every corner of the fridge, taking old ham and greening cheese into his four-fingered hands and shoveling them into his mouth.

“How do you know what a Soviet-era supermarket was like?” I asked, ignoring the more obvious questions available.

In between mouthfuls of food, Orl paused.

“That contraption is a pan-dimensional portal container. I am a citizen of said dimension. Your uncle – who, by the way, isn’t your uncle – let it be known that you were taking over. I know about Soviet-era supermarkets because I visited a few. Make your grey kitchen look like ‘Claridge’s’. Anyway, your uncle was a regular visitor to my dimension and I to his. He said he told you about it.” Orl insisted as it started eating the cheese. “Not very exciting cheese you’ve got,” it muttered at the end.

“I don’t understand,”

“It took your uncle a while to ‘understand’. He got it in the end. And why do you think he used to take you fishing? That was a way of bonding with you and explaining to you about pan-dimensional entities.” Orl reasoned.

“Really?” I said. “His mumbles about ‘things not being what they seem’ and ‘The Man’ were all hints about pan-dimensional travel? I mean, couldn’t he have been a bit blunter?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Orl shrugged. “Anyway, now we have the formalities out of the way, we can move on.”

It felt like I had been unconscious for the middle portion of a very detailed lecture on quantum mechanics where, at the end, the professor looks at you as if you’ve somehow absorbed all of this information.

“Your uncle was a regular visitor to my dimension. Did some babysitting for my wife and me on occasion. Kept pan-dimensional invaders from either side of the barrier getting through. Usual stuff. Now it’s your turn. I thought your cousin who got the Suzuki bike was a better choice, but Bill said that you were a loner and wouldn’t be missed during long trans-dimensional odysseys.”

“Charming,” I muttered.

“Anyway, get some clothes on and we’ll go.”

“Ironic,” I muttered again as I averted my look from his bright green organs that were on display. “Wait a minute, what do you mean ‘we’ll go’?”

“There’s a war to fight, there’s Okkladons and Ferrik-Nomads to stop invading your reality. The princess of Tok-Iri-Verg demands our presence too.”

Orl sounded completely serious and I had no reason to doubt any of it. Something about a green alien appearing in your kitchen from the depths of an old toaster makes me a bit more open-minded.

“Oh, and shelves. I need some help with the shelves. When you are our height, you always need help putting shelving up. I have some pan-dimensional resin orbs I want to display. You’ve put shelves up before I presume?” Orl asked.

I tried to motion to the shelves in the nearby living room as proof of my pedigree but they weren’t visible to Orl.

“Ok, well let’s get going. Time dilation means that you’ll only be gone a few hours.” Orl said.

“But,” I stuttered.

“Mate, when a pan-dimensional entity appears in your kitchen having broken through the reality barrier thanks to a toaster and a fork, the smart person says ‘Yes please, green stranger’.”

I couldn’t think of a retort to that.

“Well, give me a moment to put some trousers on,” I said. I accompanied this with a nod in his direction as if the chance to put on trousers was something he could think of embracing too.

“Hurry up. Portal will close in a few minutes.” Orl said with a wave of the hand.

“How do I get back?” I asked as I started putting on the trousers I had left on the radiator.

“I’ve got a Hoffenstein breadmaker that does the same thing as your toaster. You just put it on the ‘Fruit Loaf’ setting, hold it above your head while standing in a bucket of Gravilian slime and, BANG, you’re here. Don’t ask me how I found that out!” he added.

And so, with little to hold me back, I decided to follow this green visitor to I knew not where.

So that was Tuesday.