It’s a commonly-known fact that certain predators can smell fear, and use that to their advantage when hunting prey. Dogs, horses, some kinds of birds…

And printers.

And today, in an epic reversal of roles only rarely found in nature, I, the human, am the prey.

“Please, please, please work,” I mutter as I hit print for the third time this morning. First, there had been no paper in the tray, and after that, the magenta ink had decided to run out. Why did I even need magenta ink to print in black and white?

The printer creaks and groans as it starts up and hope rises into my chest as I see the edge of a piece of paper begin to inch its way out of the printer. Then, with a loud beep that makes my cap leap out of his chair and hurdle from the room, the rest of the paper slides out of the printer.

Blank.

“Fuck!” I yell. I punch the desk, but the wood is stiff and only results in my knuckles turning red and stinging painfully. I glance to the hanging clock on the other side of the room. I’m for sure going to be late. To my surprise, an empty sun-bleached circle hangs in remembrance. Had he really taken the clock too? Ass.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask the printer, as though it’s going to respond. I’ve given up on resisting talking to myself at this point – everyone else thinks I’m nuts, so who am I really trying to convince anyway?

“Connection Error” the little screen on the top of the printer reads.

“Connection to what?” I mutter. I pull up the bluetooth menu on my computer and find it’s not paired with anything. I reload the nearby pairings and 7 new names pop up, none of which have anything to do with the printer.

I glance over at the desk behind me. He’d know what to do if he were here. He’d probably fix it in two seconds and swear to me that it was more complicated than it seemed but give me that look that says something more along the lines of “really, how stupid could you be?” But the fine layer of dust coating the desk reminds me he’s probably not walking through the front door again any time soon.