CLICK TO PLAY Song of the Stapler
Read by Katy Darby
Here’s what happens. It’s late and Peterson and I are the only two left on our floor. I have a report, they want a hard copy of it upstairs, and I need a staple to hold it all together. I do not have a stapler. There is one by Peterson so I go over and am about to take hold of it when he scowls at me, like it was his. Like he’d bought it or something. I’m a thorough woman so I ask him “What?” He’s glaring now so I say “Look, I just need one staple: is that OK?” and he scowls again, but in a sort of acquiescing way.
“But you can unlock it.”
“No I can’t. I’m going home.”
“Lend me the key and I’ll lock it away when I’m done.”
“In direct contravention of security procedures? I can’t imagine that happening, can you?”
“What do you mean? You know I’m the one who is using it, I’m the only one here, so you know who to finger when it all goes wrong and the Stationery Police get involved.”
“Well first, I don’t take kindly to your sarcasm or indeed you entire approach, and secondly there’s no need to call the police if I don’t release my stapler, now is there?”
“It. Isn’t. Your. Stapler. It’s the government’s stapler. It’s the Queen’s stapler. I am taking three reports up to the office of a Minister of the crown and the crown equals the Queen so I demand that stapler in the name of Her Sodding Majesty.”
“I’m going home now. Use that language with you friends if you wish, but I would remind you this is a place of work, not a school playground.” And with that the weasel sneers at me, happy as a demon watching a soul fall into Hell.
I stand there, confused by the simultaneous impulses to do him violence that collide in my head. Eye-poking, shin-kicking, snapping his biro over his nose, fingernails to the throat, or just surrendering to the red mist and seeing what happens. Choices, choices. He stands up, puts his horrible pac-a-mac over his horrible cardigan, picks up his school satchel-like briefcase and turns to go. And then he decides on one more piece of advice.
“Perhaps you should be looking at viable alternatives rather than wasting your time bothering a colleague who is quite obviously preparing to go home. I bid you goodnight.”
I don’t know how long after he left I stay stood there, but it is long enough for the phone to ring, pregnant with the bollocking I have incurred in delaying the copies. I take them up unstapled and offer no reason: what could I say?
“Peterson wouldn’t let me use his stapler, Sir.” – I still have some pride.
This requires retribution. I wonder if I should serve my revenge cold, but then I realise that I see this creep every day, he’s going to wind me up afresh, and I’ll never get below simmering. I’ve never heard of simmering revenge, so I assume it doesn’t work and decide to operate at mad heat. I call Office Services and tell them (in my best, and much-admired, Peterson whine) that I have locked some important papers in my drawer. After much grumbling they agree to come and open it. The drawer is opened, I riffle around and take a couple of loose sheets, deftly palming the stapler beneath them. The stapler and papers go in my case. The drawer is locked again. I am nearly skipping on the way home.
*
I must admit I feel trepidation on the bus in next morning, but it is electrifying and I feel very, very alive. It’s almost sexual. Striding out of the lift, I walk briskly down the corridor, trying to look as I normally do (which is tricky because you never pay attention to yourself when you’re behaving “normally”). Faces turn; some smirking, almost winking, others disapproving, almost tutting. I am today’s news.
I have just sat down when a presence arrives at my desk. It is he. I shall never know what I looked like yesterday evening, when he cranked me up to blowing point, but I see a kindred feeling writ on his entire body. It is a faint sense of vibration, like the meeting of clashing colours seen at the corner of the eye. His mouth is a white cut curling up to a rictus grin, the eyes are fixed and the intention is obviously to show a calm exterior. It fails because he looks utterly mad, and a vein on his temple is throbbing like a small snake on a trampoline.
“I would greatly appreciate the return of my stapler,” he whispers, the smile - and the eyes – remaining fixed.
“And what would your stapler look like?” I ask sweetly: “The only staplers I have seen round here are the standard issue model.”
“I shall try again,” he says, seeming to talk with his tonsils rather than his tongue. “I went into my desk today and found that my stapler …”
“Your privately bought stapler?” I smile.
“… my stapler, the stapler I have used for six months now, with my name Tippexed on the underneath, the one I lock away to ensure I always have it to hand … was gone!”
“NO!”
“Contacting Office Services, I find that they were asked – by me, apparently - to open my drawer. This happened after I had left the building, as I have subsequently verified. The stapler was then taken. This is a serious act of identity theft – fraud, indeed - and a similarly serious waste of human resources. I asked them to provide details of the individual who took the papers, and it was you. Nonetheless, I shall ask them to come up and verify this in due course, for the purposes of substantiating my complaint. In the meantime, I am now asking you to return my stapler.”
This is starting to darken. I maintain my cool, leaning back and swivelling towards the window, but this is mainly to lose eye contact in case I betray any nerves. The petty turd is going to make this a disciplinary issue, and I don’t need that with my record. But them a light shines in the gloom: he can’t prove I made the call, and no-one saw me pick the stapler up! I took some sheets of paper to cover it: now all I have to do is think of a reason why I should do that. First, I need to send him away. This requires high moral ground. I swivel back.
“Why would I have your stupid stapler – that is, the government stapler that you have shanghaied? What would I need it for?”
His smile widens condescendingly, and he explains – very slowly: “So – that – you – could – attach – the – documents – you – took – up – to – the – Minister’s – office.”
“In – which – case,” I reply, “the – Minister’s – office – would – have – received – stapled – copies – from – me. So if you ring them up, and waste their precious time, they can tell you what state those papers were in. Then, for the public good, you can explain to them that the reason they were loose was because you would not let your colleague staple them together. Now why don’t you run along and do that? And then I might tell you what I did need from your desk.”
The pomposity disintegrates on his face, and I stare him down as his eyes start to water.
“I will – I bloody will. Bloody – bl …” he splutters, and turns on his heel.
Right, two things I need to do, very quickly. I pull the papers out of my case, and nearly cry out with joy when I see they contain figures I really do need to pull into my next report. I put them back – he must insist on seeing the contents of my case for complete humiliation. That, of course, necessitates the second action, which is to dispose of the stapler before he does this.
No-one is looking, so I put my jacket on, slide the evidence out of my case and clamp it under my left armpit: then picking up my fags I saunter towards the back stairwell. A quick sprint through the broken fire door that clicks open without triggering the alarm (always stay on the right side of smokers: we know stuff like this), a few flights down to the ground floor and then once outside I shall have a selection of foul smelling bins in which to hide the evidence. Even Peterson would stop at burrowing through half a ton of flyblown food scraps to prove his point.
I’m through the door and about half a floor down when I hear a clatter above me. Turning, I see Peterson descending on me with the look of an avenging prophet.
“Stop! STOP!” he screams.
I stop.
“And where do you think you’re going?” he snarls.
I see a small crowd behind him, craning their necks to take in the drama. A performance they shall have.
“Thought I’d have a cigarette before I decide whether to accept your forthcoming apology,” I reply.
“No! No! Oh, no! I don’t think so! Let’s see those pockets!” – and then, unbelievably, he’s on me. The idiot has actually launched himself off the step above and is trying to push me. I cling on to the banister with my right hand, but my left must be held in to retain my guilty secret.
Or must it? Turning away from him, my head is looking over the banister railing and down the stairwell, at the bottom of which is a pile of discarded equipment: chairs, pedestals, computer parts, bric-a-brac. Peterson’s arms are fluttering around me, trying to probe my hiding places without looking like a groper, and it is the work of a second to open out my left arm and let the stapler tumble into the abyss. The crowd is now making noises – the collective rumble signifying the point where voyeurism is about to change to action. Only Peterson and I hear the clatter over the scuffling, and only we see the flash of grey. Peterson leans over to crow with triumph, I step back and in some inadvertent judo manoeuvre send him flying behind me and tumbling down twelve concrete steps, near the bottom of which there is an unpleasantly sharp noise, and at the bottom of which he stops moving. Forever.
I just stand there as stuff happens around me. What to tell the police? In the end I don’t mention the stapler (mainly because I can't for the life of me think of a way to explain it) but show them the papers instead. That doesn't really explain why I had adopted Peterson's identity, but nobody finds that interesting. I even keep my job: I assume no-one wants to start disciplinary proceedings against someone who'd assassinate a man for not lending her a piece of desk equipment.
One final thing – the police look in the pile of discarded equipment in the stairwell and find about fifteen staplers. They all have Peterson’s name Tippexed on the bottom.
© Simon Jones, 2013
Simon Jones was born in the grim North, is writing a gothic novel and in his spare time gives guided tours of a well-known London cemetery. He looks weird when he smiles so he doesn’t bother. This is his third story for Liars’ League and is his idea of lightening up.
Katy Darby has appeared in over 30 plays in Oxford, Edinburgh and London, and won the Ronny Schwartz scholarship to the Oxford School of Drama. She has also directed several London productions, including the Time Out Critic's Choice comedy Dancing Bears: she prefers being behind the scenes but sometimes steps into the limelight.
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