Toaster Story

My first ever attempt at writing fiction. Enjoy, or at least try to.

“A person is not the same as a toaster.”

-David Walton

Paul Hagan sat typing at his desk, the same one he had occupied every day (not accounting for weekends or two weeks of paid leave per year) for the past six years. A banner reading “Software Solutions, LLC.” hung above his head and fluorescent light filled the room like dust. Paul’s hair, wherever any remained, was mouse brown and greasy; his pale skin looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in months, and his gaunt physique looked like he hadn’t exerted himself in years. He hadn’t always looked like this, though, and deep in his eyes one could still glimpse a hint of what used to be the flame of youthful optimism.

In the first few years after graduating from college, back when he lived in Pittsburgh, Paul had thought nothing could go wrong. He had a degree from one of the best engineering schools in the country, he and Lena were practically engaged, and he had found a dream job at Stallard Electric. But here he was, some fifteen years later, pale, his aging body wasted, sitting at his desk; his degree barely meant anything anymore, Lena had long since left him, and he was doing the last thing he would ever want to be doing. At 42, he felt like he was already dead and looked the part too.

A plump, middle aged woman with thick-rimmed glasses and an awful floral dress interrupted him from his work. He had seen her plenty of times before but had never caught her name or bothered to ask what it was.

“There’s someone here who wants to see you,” she said. Her chin jiggled a bit as she spoke.

“Who is it?” Paul replied.

“He said his name is Nathan. He didn’t say what he wanted, but he said it’s important.”

Paul hesitated a moment before sighing and laboriously rising from his seat. The woman led him to the front desk where he saw a suspiciously well-dressed man, probably in his mid-thirties, standing impatiently. He had a boyish face in the most unsettling way possible. His eyes had a glazed, naïve look to them like a child’s; his face was round and his hair was dark and neatly combed.

The three of them all stood in silence for a short moment; Nathan looked uneasy and the woman waddled over to her seat at the front desk. Eventually, Nathan stammered,

“So, you’re Mr. Hagan, then, right?” Nathan seemed to have a habit of fidgeting with his hands when he was uneasy.

“That’s me. Who are you and what do you want?”

Nathan blinked and answered, “My name is Nathan Douglas. You designed the Stallard Electric T-2600 toaster, 2006 model, right?”

Paul tensed up. He hadn’t known what to expect from this guy, but the last thing he would’ve guessed was a question about a toaster.

“I might remember having worked on that model a long time ago. But I only ever worked on the circuitry and internal programming, so I don’t know what you could want from me. I need to get back to work.”

Paul turned to go back to his desk and Nathan made an awkward step towards him, appearing to try grabbing his arm to stop him but changing his mind halfway through, pausing in an odd lunging position.

“Wait! Listen,” Nathan pleaded, “just listen for a second. I collect antique appliances.”

“You what?”

“I collect old microwaves, toasters, coffee makers, that kind of thing. A few weeks ago I bought two of your toasters at an antique store, and, um, I noticed something strange when I tried turning them on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t really explain, except it seems like the two of them are in sync or something. I don’t know why it’s happening, which is why I’m here.”

The engineer looked the man-child up and down with a look of bewilderment. “Well, that does seem a bit unusual, but I really don’t see how any of this is worth me taking a look at.”

“Please, M-Mr. Hagan, just take a look at it. I’ll make it worth your time. I’ll pay for your trip and everything! In fact, I’ll give you a thousand dollars just for coming to look, and if you can find out what’s causing this, I’ll pay even more.”

Paul had his interest piqued at the mention of money; he was only one or two unexpected car break-downs or sick days away from bankruptcy, and a thousand dollars or more would go a long way. This Nathan guy definitely seemed like the eccentric and wealthy type, too, with his childish demeanor and appliance-collecting hobby. Paul took a look around his dismal office and decided he’d rather be anywhere but his desk.

“Alright,” Paul said, “I’ll take a look.”

* * * * *

Nathan Douglas’ house was a large brick mansion surrounded by other large brick mansions in a suburb outside Boston. In the front were two enormous oak trees, a well-manicured lawn, and a granite brick driveway into which Nathan pulled his Mercedes-Benz with Paul in the passenger seat. It appeared to Paul that Nathan lived alone, as there were no other cars in the driveway nor any signs of life inside the house. Nathan parked and the two went inside.

The house smelled musty and faintly sour, like a retirement home or an antique store, and it looked like someone had decided to open a Homegoods in a dead millionaire’s house without taking anything out first. Every room was tastefully decorated, albeit a bit dated, with every table, cabinet, coffee chair and couch covered with microwaves, fans, mini-fridges, air fryers, and toasters.

Nathan led Paul into the kitchen; Paul immediately recognized the toasters sitting on the marble countertop. One was gray and the other black; the Stallard T-2600 toasters came in four colors: red, white, black and gray. The two toasters sat plugged into different outlets on the long countertop and were turned off. Paul spoke first.

“Okay, what did you want to show me?”

“Just watch,” Nathan replied.

He fiddled with the toast setting on the two toasters, taking care to ensure they were set to the same temperature; he turned the dial on both toasters to exactly 4. Then, Nathan pulled a lever down on the black toaster.

“Now wait a second. Watch the toasters, you’ll see what I’m talking about,” Nathan said.

Paul watched the black toaster heat up, an orange glow beginning to emanate from the toaster’s coils. Then he looked over to the other one to see what Nathan had been talking about; nothing was happening. He asked,

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Keep waiting. It won’t be long.”

As soon as Nathan spoke, Paul saw it. Slowly, the gray toaster’s coils began to light up, just as the black one had done, even though nobody had pulled the lever down. Paul puzzled over the toasters for a while, wondering how this could have happened. How could he have left such a glaring flaw in his design? Not only was it bizarre, it was a fire hazard! Maybe it was something wrong with just these two toasters, or maybe it was a manufacturing defect, but Paul had created the heat regulation system in the toasters all by himself; if there was a problem which caused the toaster to heat up unexpectedly, Paul’s system had to be involved somehow.

“Get me a screwdriver. I want to look inside at the heat regulation system.”

Nathan left, and Paul unplugged the two toasters, inspecting their exterior. Nathan returned with a Phillips-head that looked like it had never been used before and handed it to Paul.

Paul unscrewed the bottom panel of the black toaster and checked the wiring. It looked exactly like his designs from back at Stallard, which gave him an odd feeling: not quite nostalgia (nostalgia over a toaster?), but something like it. The design of the toaster was fairly simple; there was one small processor which controlled and monitored the flow of electricity into the coils to control the cooking time and prevent the toaster from overheating. The processor had one positive port and one negative port, each with two wires extending out, one leading to the coils and one leading to the power source. Paul created this design so that the processing system could manage the power input and the volume of electricity coming from the coils at the same time, but seeing the design again gave him an idea. Because the processing system doesn’t distinguish between incoming electricity and the electricity flowing through the coils, it could be that the toasters are interpreting each others’ electrical output and processing them as their own.

To test his hypothesis, Paul ran an experiment. He opened up both toasters to fully reveal the processing unit and its two ports, and after buying voltage meters from an old Radioshack, connected them to the four outgoing cords on both toasters. Then he plugged both toasters in and pulled down a lever on the gray toaster; slowly, the toaster began to heat up and, just as last time, the black toaster followed suit. Paul carefully watched the voltage meter and, as he suspected, the gray toaster’s outgoing power was identical to the black toaster’s incoming power; the voltage fluctuated in seemingly random patterns, and whatever the gray toaster’s outgoing power, the black toaster’s incoming voltage almost instantly reached the same value. But then he noticed something else; the black toaster’s outgoing voltage was also identical to the gray toaster’s incoming voltage. The values fluctuated in seemingly unpredictable ways but appeared to have a kind of regular pattern to them; this made sense, after all, because the heat regulation systems in the toasters were designed to prevent feedback loops. But what didn’t make sense to Paul, and what unsettled him the most, was that the toasters were responding to each others’ signals on both ends.

“It’s almost like they’re communicating,” Paul muttered.

Nathan gave a puzzled look. “What? How?”

“The heat regulation system is designed to interpret changes in electrical input, and this causes the system’s output to change accordingly. So because they’re connected through this electrical current, they’re sending electricity back and forth to each other––it’s like they’re playing ping-pong. Or like they’re neurons.”

Nathan nodded slowly, as though he had a vague understanding of what Paul had meant but felt uncomfortable asking any questions. He was fidgeting with his hands a little bit.

Paul decided to take his experiment one step further. He pushed the lever on the gray toaster back up, curious to see whether the two toasters would turn off or if, as his hypothesis suggested, the two toasters would continue exchanging signals and stay on.

As soon as Paul had lifted the lever on the gray toaster, both toasters’ coils began to fade simultaneously. He watched the voltage meters continue their exchange of electricity, but the fluctuations of voltage were decreasing steadily. It appeared that Paul’s hypothesis was incorrect; the two toasters were powering off. After a moment, the voltage output on the gray toaster reached zero; the input on the black one also went out. But the instant that the gray toaster went out, the black one suddenly went into what could be described as nothing other than a panic. The black toaster’s coil, which had looked like it was a moment away from going out completely, suddenly brightened to a level that the toasters weren’t even designed for. Its power output skyrocketed to hundreds and even thousands of volts, fluctuating at wild and dangerous levels of electricity. Sparks began to fly from the black toaster’s slot, and the other slot, which up until this point had not been turned on, began to glow at an equally frightening intensity. The kitchen lights flickered and gave way to a shrill popping noise as they exploded in unison. Nathan and Paul exchanged panicked and confused looks with each other.

“Off! Turn them off!” Exclaimed Nathan.

Paul ignored Nathan’s outburst and diverted his gaze to the voltage meters. The black toaster’s meters were going insane while the gray toaster was slowly coming back to life. The voltage meter on the gray toaster’s input port was beginning to climb back up and both slots on the gray toaster, as on the black one, were beginning to glow with the same dangerous intensity.

This can’t be good, Paul thought. Sparks were flying from both toasters and it appeared that they were just moments away from completely melting down, but as soon as the two toasters reached a climax, they began to fade back down to normal levels.

* * * * *

In the days following Paul’s toaster experiment, local news outlets reported on an unusual glitch in the power grid which resulted in power surges throughout the Boston area and a few pieces of charred toast. While experts remained unsure exactly what had caused it, there were indications that it had something to do with Stallard Electric toasters manufactured after the year 2006, as there were reports that these toasters spontaneously overheated at some time around 1:15 pm that day, coinciding with the surge. Stallard Electric declined requests for comment, only stating that they would look into the issue.

In the meantime, though, Paul had done some of his own digging, getting in touch with one of his former Stallard colleagues (who was laid off a few months after Paul back in 2008) and found that Stallard had continued to use Paul’s toaster design in the years after the 2006 model long after Paul left the company, only making cosmetic changes to the newer toasters’ exterior. Paul found a 2014 model of the Stallard T-2600 toaster at a used electronics store as well as the newest model carried at a nearby Wal-Mart. He ran his experiment on the newer toasters (but avoided creating another power surge) and found that they had the same unusual tendency to synchronize with other toasters on the same current. He also spent a good deal of time studying the fluctuations in voltage levels on the toasters and found that these fluctuations had several patterns which were identical across all the toasters, no matter which ones were in communication with each other or which one was turned on.

“It seems like they have some kind of language or code that they use to communicate,” said Paul. “They always start off with the same fluctuation when they begin, no matter which toaster is doing it, and then there’s all these other patterns that I keep seeing.”

“So.... You think they’re talking to each other?” asked Nathan.

“Maybe. At least something like that. But I wonder if I can learn their language.”

Paul disassembled the 2014 toaster, removing its heat regulation processor and connecting it to a circuit board that allowed him to control its electricity output. He plugged this system back into an outlet and sent out the same signal that the toasters always used when they initiated contact with each other. Also plugged in was the black 2006 toaster, and when Paul sent out the “greeting signal,” as he called it, the black toaster began to turn on and responded with the greeting signal. Paul sent the greeting signal back out again and received a different fluctuation which Paul recognized but didn’t understand. Paul sent that pattern back out to the black toaster, to which the black toaster responded again with the same pattern. Paul and the black toaster did a few more rounds of this electrical ping-pong until the black toaster sent out another signal, higher in voltage and more frantic, as though the black toaster were trying to shake Paul out of his dumb stupor. Paul sent this signal back to the black toaster, but as soon as the toaster read Paul’s signal, the black toaster shut off, turning its coils off and no longer responding to Paul’s input.

Why was the black toaster acting like this? Somehow, the toaster was able to understand that Paul didn’t speak its language; it was like Paul was a parrot, mimicking the toasters’ language without knowing what the patterns meant. It gave Paul an idea, though. If I can’t learn their language, he thought, maybe I can teach it mine.

Back in high school, while many of his classmates were out partying and doing whatever the cool kids did, Paul and his friends had taught themselves Morse code so that they could talk to each other during class and communicate during tests. After refreshing his Morse skills, he took apart the newest T-2600 model (he was reluctant to take apart the 2006 models due to their age) and connected a new input to the heat regulation unit which was attached to a circuit board connected to a Morse language chip. Paul plugged all four units––both 2006 models and the two that he had modified––into outlets throughout Nathan’s kitchen. If Paul’s plan worked, with some trial and error the toaster would learn to use Morse code and the other two toasters would be able to catch on as well, accelerating the rate at which the toasters learned.

Paul initiated contact with the greeting signal, and right away the new toaster began to light up with the other two quickly following suit. He received the greeting signal back from the new toaster, but this time Paul responded with “.... . .-.. .-.. ---”: “hello.” Paul watched the signal travel down the line of toasters, with all of them responding, perhaps out of confusion, with the greeting signal once more. Paul received the greeting signal again, and again he responded with “hello.” After two more of these back-and-forths, Paul saw the newest toaster sending the “hello” signal down to the other toasters. For a bit, the three toasters seemed to have their own conversation until Paul received a new signal: “.... . .-.. .-.. ---”. Hello. He had made contact. Frantically, Paul sent out a new message: “.-- .... --- / .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- ..--..”: “Who are you?”

The toasters responded,

“- -....- ..--- -.... ----- ----- .-.-.- / .-- . .-.. -.-. --- -- . / - --- / - .... . / -- .. -. -.. .-.-.-”

T-2600. Welcome to the mind.