Foreign Objects

Mr Evers jabbed the Black No Sugar button and yanked down the neck of his tie. He inhaled the steam gusting from the gullet of the machine, thinking of nothing but a smoke-hazed staffroom. It was only last year they repainted the nicotine-yellowed walls, he remembered. He inhaled again; the moisture in his lungs almost, almost like tobacco.

The coffee machine issued four loud slurps and hissed to steamy silence. Half a plastic cup of gritty water stood in the repository. Mr Evers thumped the machine's side and jabbed the Black No Sugar button again, harder, twice.

'Playing up, is it?'

Mr Evers's insides lurched. He hadn't realised he was observed.

Squelched in her habitual grotty seat beneath the window, a pen dangling between two fingers, (almost, almost like a cigarette) was Miss Duchy.

Mr Evers thumped the machine again, which groaned with the effort to excrete more steam.

'Yup.'

Surely he was capable of greater articulation than that? Even with Miss Duchy?

'Again,' he tried, but his imagination wouldn't stretch further.

'Unh, was it broken before?'

The machine splurted dribbles of coffee like black diarrhoea.

'I don't think I'll drink that after all,' he mumbled, picking up this second attempt and chucking it straight at the bin. It bounced off the rim and coffee sludge splashed on the plain white walls.

'Was it broken before, I said?'

Miss Duchy's iPad, balanced on her large thighs, displayed a crossword. One word was filled in. Mr Evers found conversation with Miss Duchy difficult. She was the sort of person who felt that it was her right to be listened to.

'Every week, just about.'

'I've never had any trouble.' Smugly, she filled in another blank on her crossword, used the auto-check to make sure, and corrected her spelling mistake.

Mr Evers sat down and pulled out some Year 12 work on Milton. Miss Duchy was also ugly. Not just ordinary ugly, (Mr Evers assured himself) ugly with extra cheese and chips and coleslaw.

'Maybe it's just the Black No Sugar option then,' Mr Evers mumbled into his chest, and he rustled his sheaf of essays. Bethany Fyfields's attempt glared at him. He felt it was spore ridden and would make him ill.

How has the character of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost been interpreted historically?
Many people thinks Satan is the tradition anti-hero. However in his battle with God he is actually quite modern. He stands for modern civilization in the face of tradition, leading an army of machine-like warriors. I think this is like The Terminator which shows that Milton is actually a head of his time.
PB Shelley (writer of Frankenstein) obviously percieved this when he argues that Satan is the good guy. Like the Terminator (and in actual fact Frankenstein's monster) we are lead to empathize....

Mr Evers's head hurt. Probably, he decided, because he was caffeine-deprived. It wasn't Bethany's fault, after all.

Mr Evers decided to stick to grammatical and factual errors now, and tackle conceptual issues in the next lesson, which wasn't (he checked his diary to make sure) until Monday, thank God.

'I said, what did you say then?'

'Hm?'

'I said, what did you say just then?'

Mr Evers hadn't a clue what he had said just then. For an awful moment he thought he'd spoken to himself while reading Bethany's essay.

'Something about black sugar?' Miss Duchy prompted.

The moment of relief was immediately drowned under a tidal wave of renewed panic. Had Miss Duchy thought that he was being racist? Mr Evers was terrified that she might detect his dislike and be convinced that it was because he was racist, not simply because he didn't much like her.

Lurking beneath this fear, like a snail in its shell under sweltering sunshine, was the fear that, subconsciously, the reason he didn't like Miss Duchy was because he was unknowingly racist. Perhaps, he thought, she only looked that ugly because she was black? Perhaps her speech habits were, well, cultural or something? Well – how did he know?

Mr Evers searched Miss Duchy's goggling eyes and flabby lips, but found in them nothing more than dumb curiosity. Still, he was uneasy.

Enunciating, he repeated: 'Maybe it's just the Black No Sugar button then.'

'I always have sweetener and milk in it, otherwise it upsets my stomach, see?'

Mr Evers smiled slightly at this inappropriate confidence, and returned to his marking.

Milton was Satan's first critic. Like an angel who becomes a devil who becomes a snake, Satan's status is Protean; even his makers - God and Milton alike - cannot hold him down....

Suzanne Reed's essays had always annoyed Mr Evers. She was pretentious. Intelligent, fine, but pretentious as hell. Anyway, he hadn't been able to get the hang of writing like that, even during his Masters.

'I said, I always -'

'I know.' Mr Evers seasoned his interruption with another smile. It didn't do to fall out with colleagues, even ugly ones.

Miss Duchy sighed. 'Why do I always have to repeat myself? Hm? Why-'

'I know. Sorry, I've got a lot of marking to get through. Year 12, you know? Coursework first drafts. The deadline's Christmas.'
Miss Duchy didn't know, because she taught maths, but Mr Evers thought it would be flattering to pretend.

'Did you have Year 10 today?'

'10T, yes.'

'Were you teaching them sci-fi or something?'

Mr Evers put his red biro away, resigned to a wasted hour.

'H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds. Yes, I introduced them to the term dystopia.'

'Dys-what-ia?'

Maybe it's just her culture of something, Mr Evers told himself.

'Dystopia. A futuristic society much worse than our own, you know? Where the possibilities for evil we see in our own society are played out. I got 10T to imagine how frightening it would be to live in Victorian England and see the birth of technology and then asked them to imagine a future where mobile phones or the internet took over humanity.' He picked up his sheaf of essays as if he might read them, saw Suzanne Reed's disgusting, girly handwriting, and put the sheaf down again. 'I'm afraid they all went a bit mad,' he continued.

'As if they weren't mad already,' Miss Duchy said, and cackled.

Mr Evers put Suzanne's essay at the bottom of the pile and tried to read Dan Sammes's scrawl.

Atheists often praise Satan for standing up to God, for questioning himself and for inventing new cities, and weapons. Satan does not defeat the forces of good however, he comes damn* close which shows he is demi-godlike.

The asterisk led to a note scribbled upside-down, with the plea I thought I could get away with it because it's a pun Mr Evers.

'They came into class saying they had aliens in their brains making them psychic and controlling their thoughts,' Miss Duchy said still cackling. 'They did all sorts. I had Drew Masefield clambering up a window saying the aliens made him do it.' She was still laughing. How juvenile, thought Mr Evers.

'Yes, I tried to suggest to them that social networking was most likely lead to some sort of hyper-regulated social control, hierarchical perhaps; but they all seemed more interested in having aliens in their brains. Usually exploding.'

'Oh, yeah, I had a lot of zombies.'

'I'm sorry about that. George Tesney had quite a nice idea actually. Quite sweet. He said he had a magnet in his head which kept turning the insides of computers and mobile phones into gobbledegook, so he couldn't communicate with the rest of the human race. He ended up shut off in-'

'Oh, no, don't be sorry, it meant I wasted half the lesson getting them to sit down. Fantastic.'

That was another thing. Miss Duchy was lazy.

'H.G. Wells,' she went on, 'wasn't he a film maker or something?'

'You mean Orson Welles?'

'Yeah, him. Didn't know he wrote sci-fi as well.'

'Mm,' said Mr Evers; too caffeine-deprived, he told himself, to argue. He returned to Dan Sammes's essay and there was silence for long enough to allow Miss Duchy to fill in another clue on her crossword, check it, and delete it.

'I'd stick to sweeteners if I were you,' Miss Duchy said sagely, placing her iPad on the chair beside her. 'Let's see that machine,' she said. She clambered from the grotty seat and ambled across.

She pressed an ear to the coffee machine's side as if listening for a heartbeat. Then, firmly but slowly, she pressed the Black No Sugar button.

'You have to jab it,' Mr Evers said, but apparently Miss Duchy didn't have to jab it, because a stream of black coffee poured neatly into a plastic cup.

'There you go,' Miss Duchy said as the coffee machine emitted a self-satisfied sigh and fell silent. She passed him the cup of perfect brown water, with a slight, artificial froth, and the familiar aroma of instant granules.

But Mr Evers wasn't satisfied. He rose to his feet, the forgotten essays cascading onto the carpet, and strode over. One finger extended, he poked the Black No Sugar button.

The machine spluttered like a drowning dog. It didn't even present him with a cup. Scalding pellets of coffee splattered on his white shirt and beige trousers. Miss Duchy's gasp was lost amid the fitting of the machine.

Eventually it stopped. Mr Evers waited, just in case. Then he brushed the coffee droplets from his trousers.

'You must just be doing it wrong,' said Miss Duchy.

'How can I be doing it wrong? All you do is press a button.'

'Try the White Sugar-Free Sweetener.'

Mr Evers tried the White Sugar-Free Sweetener. The machine wheezed, spat out a cup, whizzed a stream of dirty milk into the bottom of the cup, wheezed again, blinked its lights, and stopped. Miss Duchy pulled a face, removed the cup, and tried herself. Perfect white coffee with sweetener trickled into a brand new plastic cup.

'You're doing it wrong,' she concluded.

'I am not,' Mr Evers insisted. He tried a different button - White No Sugar - pressing slowly, but firmly, in imitation of Miss Duchy.

The lights on the front flashed. Nothing happened. Mr Evers waited. Miss Duchy waddled back to her seat and resumed her crossword.

Mr Evers pressed the button again. Again the flashing of lights. A faint hiss like a wary cat. Again, no coffee.

Mr Evers thumped the machine's side.

Coffee shot at his face, milk fountained from three different holes, the lights danced like flames, and within a moment the front piece of the machine had blown off, showering Mr Evers and his white shirt and his beige trousers in coffee and fragments of plastic.

---

Jonas was in the cellar when his dad got home.

'I'm back! It's snowing out there, did you know?'

But Jonas didn't need to hear the shout to know it was his dad back because he'd felt the sickening drag in his head as soon as dad's foot had hit the front step. That was about the range, from down here.

Jonas thought he would take the Atari. Dad wouldn't want it. Anyway, it had been Jonas's. Pretty much.

'Hello?' said his dad's voice, closer now. 'Anyone in?'

Jonas lifted a fungus of Atari cables. A large plastic growth turned out to be a joystick. Should he bother to check everything was here? Or should he take a chance?

'Jonas?'

'I'm in the cellar!'

The light clicked on in the hall above. Mr Evers had removed his tie in the car, but his shirt and trousers were still covered in coffee.

'What are you doing down there?' Mr Evers asked, descending the cellar stairs.

'You're home early,' said Jonas.

'There was...' Mr Evers paused to frown at the Atari screen at his son's feet. 'An incident,' he finished at last.

'Looks messy.'

'Hm. What are you doing with that old computer?'

'It's vintage now, dad.'

Jonas decided he'd sell it. He would need to check all the cables and things then. He definitely wasn't coming back here. He tried not to get too close to his father, in case he got too dizzy and fell over again.

'But what are you doing with it?'

'It's mine.'

'It's junk you know.'

'It's my junk.'

'Jonas -'

'I'm taking it with me.' Jonas didn't know where he was going yet, but he'd sent out the message, online. Something'd come up.

Mr Evers sighed and sat on the bottom step. He rested his head on his hand. Jonas almost felt sorry for him. Then he hit himself on the side of the temple with the flat of his palm as if to dislodge something, and set himself to the task of untangling.

'Where are you going, Jonas?'

Jonas shrugged. 'Something'll come up.' Then, before his dad could say anything, 'Look my friends are on the look-out, alright?'

'Jonas, seriously?'

'The trouble with you is,' said Jonas, pulling out the protruding joystick, 'you don't have faith in people.'

That wasn't the only trouble, but it was a start.

Mr Evers didn't say anything. Jonas started working two wires out from their intimate embrace.

'I'm so shut in here,' Jonas went on after a while. Mr Evers sighed. 'I don't like this place, dad, I don't like the feel here.'

IT'S YOU DAD, IT'S YOU he shouted in his head, but he didn't say it aloud. They'd just get in a stupid argument, and he'd hit his dad, and then he'd feel sick, and he wouldn't be able to leave for days, and he didn't want to be stuck here for even another hour. He'd wanted to be gone before his dad got home.

'What happened at work?'

'The coffee machine exploded.'

Jonas tried to be surprised, but he wasn't surprised. Stuff was always breaking when dad was around. His head was breaking right now.

Jonas was intent on his untangling. There was only one, super-complex knot left. But there was a clever way to do it, he saw, if he just twisted that, that bit would slip out, and he could just slip that other one through –

'It probably won't even turn on, Jonas, the damp-'

Before Jonas could stop him his dad had reached down for the Atari screen. The moment Mr Evers's fingers made contact with the plastic sides there was a spark. Jonas saw blue shoot up the length of his dad's arms and vanish into his ear holes and nostrils. Jonas smelt a faint burning and Mr Ever's greying hair drifted with static.

Gingerly, Mr Evers patted his face.

'Ouch,' he said.

'Great, dad.'

'The damn thing must be plugged in still or something,' said Mr Evers.

'I'm holding the cables, dad.' Jonas dropped the untangled cables on the floor and heard the plastic of the joystick crack.

'It must have picked something up. Something in the atmosphere or something.'

'Don't be stupid.' Jonas tried to stop himself, but he couldn't resist a quiet, 'it's you.'

'Jonas?'

'I could've sold that. I could've paid my way while I looked for a job or something. Thanks dad, that's really great.'

Jonas had his bag packed already, waiting in the kitchen. He got out his Blackberry, but of course it was playing up. Never mind, once he got to the bus stop he'd be far enough away. Someone would pull through for him.

Mr Evers was still sitting on the bottom step. Jonas took a deep breath and pushed past. His trouser leg brushed his dad's sleeve. He felt a wave of giddiness, swayed, but grabbed the corner where the wall descended above, and stopped himself falling.

He took another breath, lifted his feet, carefully, one at a time. He looked down at his dad, but his dad wasn't looking at him. Mr Evers had his head in both hands now. Jonas wanted to retch.

By the time Jonas reached the hall he was feeling better; lightheaded still, but not so queasy.

'It's snowing out there, Jonas,' was the last thing Mr Evers said before his son slammed the front door shut.

---

'Leaders in the international book market and inventors of the Kindle e-book reader, Amazon.com have stated that the e-book is set to overtake its humble paper cousin by 2012. Jonathan Wakes joins me on PM on behalf of Amazon. Welcome Jonathan. Now, figures show that e-book sales already outstrip hardback sales from your website internationally, is that right?'

'Yes Carolyn, and in the run-up to Christmas the demand for the newly released Kindle 3 means e-book sales are increasing at over double the rate of traditional books. We actually expect e-book sales to peak just after Christmas around the New Year, when all those new Kindle users.... '

Mr Evers switched off the radio and tried to focus on Bethany's essay.

Many people thinks Satan blah blah blah modern civilization in the face of tradition, leading an army of machine blah blah to empathize with monstrous killer robots because, as we see when Satan delivers his solilaquy on the mount he has feelings too.

'God,' Mr Evers said, and since he had started drinking when his son left home forever, five hours ago, he now found that he'd torn Bethany's essay in half before he'd had a chance to realise.

'Now, how will that look in the morning?' he asked himself. But then, he didn't have Year 12 until Monday, thank God.

Perhaps he could sellotape it. Perhaps the dog ate it. He laughed at that. No. The most reasonable thing, he decided, taking another slug from the wine he'd opened when he'd run out of beers, was to rewrite it all again in his best imitation of Bethany Fyfield's handwriting.

Anyway, it was no use trying to do any sensible marking now.

He lay on the sofa for five minutes. Where had the radio gone?

Ah yes, he'd turned it off.

Well, he couldn't just lie there. He could of course just lie there, but it wouldn't do him any good. He had nearly finished the bottle of wine, but a small measure of good sense had somehow survived intact.

No, it hadn't survived. Because it hadn't existed that morning Mr Evers was sure. It was an alien thing. It had germinated out of his afternoon of drinking and – and contemplation. He would go somewhere, get some air, wear himself out. Then he would pass the night in oblivion, and tomorrow would be – well, tomorrow.

Outside, the snow had become sleet. It crept down the back of Mr Ever's collar, seared his skin. He sucked as hard as he could on the hot smoke of his cigarette, but still found himself shaking.

Inside The Three Kings Mrs Evers felt sickened by the lights, and his new, small, organic ball of sense told him to order a coffee. Obediently, he did so, ('Milk?' 'No thanks.' 'Sugar?' 'No. Thanks.') and took his drink to the cushioned seat in the corner, only slopping a little in the saucer.

He tore open the complimentary biscuit with his teeth, dipped, and ate the soggy object in one swallow. Suddenly he had a fierce desire for food, something sweet and starchy. What he wanted was a big bowl of porridge and honey, but he had an idea The Three Kings didn't sell porridge.

'Hey,' he said, sloping back to the bar, 'what you got to eat?'

'Crisps,' said the bartender, 'nuts. Snickers bars.'

'Three bags of crisps and a Snickers.'

'Two pound eighty.'

Mr Evers carried his fodder back to his corner, and had just pulled open his first bag of Ready Salted when the pub door opened and a noisy group of sleet-drenched youths crowded in. They tumbled into a booth like this pub was their living room.

Mr Evers clutched both his hands to the sides of his head so he couldn't hear them. It was difficult to eat with no hands.

Half of the crowd had moved to the bar to order pints. Only three girls were left in the booth opposite, waiting.

Mr Evers glared at them. He tentatively removed one hand from his head so he could pick up his coffee. He was mid-slurp when his mind focused and he nearly dropped the cup.

That girl in the denim-look leggings was Bethany Fyfield. He had frequently had to tell her off for wearing make-up in class, but he now saw that that was nothing to what she wore in the evenings. Her face looked almost unreal. Monstrous, nearly.

'AAH! MR EVERS!' Bethany shrieked as she spotted him. She dragged the elbow of her friend, (Sadie Something. Mr Evers had taught her at GCSE) but Sadie wouldn't move.

Undeterred, Bethany scurried over. Her toes bulged out of strappy high-heels. 'Mr Evers,' she said again, 'what brings you to our humble watering hole?'

'Despair,' said Mr Evers. 'Your Milton essay has driven me to drink.'

Bethany laughed and slapped Mr Evers's thigh, 'Oh, you are hil-ar-ious, Mr Evers. What's your real name by the way? Can I call you by your real name?'

'My real name is Mr Evers.'

'Mr Mister Evers? Ok, Mr Mister Evers. I'll call you... Misty. Ok, Mr Misty.'

She helped herself to his crisps. Mr Evers tried not to look at her, to inch away from the hand still resting on his thigh.

'Hey guys! This is my English teacher. Come over.'

But none of them did. Bethany's friends cast furtive glances over, orbited round them as if a force field repelled them. After ten minutes they were all clumped against the farthest wall, sipping their pints. Sadie Something was clutching Bethany's undrunk WKD Blue.

'You're not married are you? Are you, Misty?' Bethany asked.

'Er, no, ' said Mr Evers, sipping his coffee and opening his second packet of crisps.

'Aw, never meet the right woman?'

'No, I'm – I'm divorced.'

'Oh, you're divorced? Then what are you being so shy about? You know what Mr Misty...' she clutched his thigh hard and leant over, her breath salty. 'You make me feel giddy. You make my head go all fuzzy every time I get near you. You make Jen and Adele's heads go fuzzy too, but they say they don't like it. They say,' she giggled, 'they say you make them feel sick. Hah! But I like it.'

Then Bethany's bra started to jiggle and lights flashed through the pink fabric. She took her hand off his thigh and fished a mobile from the front of her top.

'Error 2?' she said, looking at it. Across the room, her friends were looking from her phone to theirs. One mouthed something.

Bethany's phone jiggled again and more lights flashed.

'Juhguhmuh – Mr Evers, do you understand this?'

Bethany's friends were all staring at them now, their heads lowered in silent conspiracy. Bethany had to nudge Mr Evers before he would look at her phone. He had half a moment to read the mess of characters that had invaded the screen before the lights flashed again and the phone went blank.

'What? I charged it this morning. Mr Misty, do you know much about phones?'

Nothing, he thought, except that Sadie Something was banging hers against a table. The young man beside her took it from her hands, pulled the back off, fiddled a bit, and tried to put it back together. He pressed a button and waited. He pressed it once more. He dumped the phone on the table, took out his own phone, pressed a button, then banged it against the table, just like Sadie.

'Oi, Misty.' Bethany thrust the object into his hands. It fizzed and he dropped it. He flexed his fingers. They tingled.

'Sorry,' he said, and carefully wiped his fingers on his trousers before going to pick the phone from the carpet. Before he'd even touched it, a zap of electricity had leapt from the phone to his finger. He jumped. Suddenly he felt tired, very tired, and sad.

'Sadie, you have to – no. No. Bethany, sorry. Bethany, you'll have to...'

Bethany's head dropped onto his shoulder. It was too much, and Mr Evers slid away along the seat, crushing the second packet of crisps onto the underside of his trousers. Bethany slid with him, and her head swung free from his shoulder and thudded onto the seat.

Mr Evers had been going to gulp down his coffee. Now he looked at Bethany, looked at his coffee cup, drank the lot anyway. He shook his head hard and blinked, deliberately, three times.

'Bethany?'

He didn't want to look at her. He reached a tentative hand out until he touched her hair, her cheek, her shoulder. He gave her a gentle push.

'Bethany?'

Nothing.

'Hi!' he shouted across the pub, 'something's happened to Bethany. Can you come over and help me? Please?'

The crowd didn't move. They didn't speak. They carried on staring. Several gripped their mobile phones. The bartender had disappeared.

'Call a – a doctor or something? I think she's passed out. I don't – '

Sadie Something, ever so slightly, shook her head. Still none of them spoke. None moved. They sat clumped together, huddled in the corner like damp, anxious to avoid the light.

'I -'

Mr Evers looked down at Bethany. He took one, scared glance at the mobile phone by his foot. He wanted to kick it, but he didn't dare.

He was half sat on the Snickers bar. When he picked it up he could feel it melting inside the plastic. He slid from behind the table, glanced at the youths, glanced back towards Bethany, who was hidden but for her feet behind the table.

Shaking, again, he picked up his empty coffee cup and placed it on the bar. The youths all leant back as he passed nearby. Sadie wiped sweat from her forehead.

Mr Evers pulled his coat tight and strode out of the pub door. He unwrapped his Snickers and ate it in three bites; wiped his chocolate-covered fingers on his thigh, and lit a cigarette.