Office Fire

Hands of heat drag paint from the walls. Smoke sparks at the corners of beige machines, which soon will begin to ooze off the bench, as flame licks along the carpet, burns the desk to charcoal, and gone are the paperwork and filing, gone the year-planner, and the tick of the clock above the swivel chair - and then, hurtling through the third floor window, the microwave with its madness of metal that's done all this - the office fire - metal secretly placed by a fist - and out it comes, shattering the glass, flying free as a punching fist at last - before finally exploding, mid-air like a firework. And, below, a certain Fist in a pocket offers silent applause. How often have the eyes of a slave at a desk dreamed of such action, how often.

But it was not like that. The door to the kitchen: black smoke streams out from the edges of that oblong. A finger presses a fire alarm. Half an hour working out that the electric hob came back on, after a power cut, too close to the new diposable cups. Soon we're let back in, escaping the world of chats and thin drizzle, to the office and electronic world, permeated by partly-burnt plastic, the kitchen sealed off, and Fist left limp in a pocket.