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I sat at my desk, languishing in utter boredom. I played with the little sign that said my name and informed anyone who happened to care (no-one) that I was an IT technician in this dark, dank hellhole of an office. Okay, so it was neither dark, dank nor a hellhole, though it did get a bit stuffy quite often. No, my problem with it was that it was so damn boring, and everything was always broken!
*
Every day, I drove to work in my ancient, constantly-stalling car. I would walk into the building, cursing the fact that the lift was never working and I had to drag myself up five flights of stairs to reach my tiny office, with its broken air-conditioning and windows that wouldn't open. I would sit tapping unenthusiastically at the keyboard of my obsolete computer.

Then, at lunchtime, I would slump down the overly long staircase again, before crossing the road in which the traffic lights were somehow never red. I would enter the shop, buy some food, and repeat the epic trek up to the top of the staircase and into my hovel.

At night, I would struggle back down the ridiculous stairs, before waiting ten minutes after the key went in for my car to start. I would drive home, through the traffic lights which had usually, by this time, decided to go red almost constantly. I would stumble into my home and lie down on my squeaky mattress, and enjoy a full night of rest, before the inevitable pain of the next day.
*
Speaking of the next day:
The next day.
No longer speaking of the next day, but of today:
I sat at my desk, languishing in'wait, I've done this bit, haven't I?
[Fast-Forward]
'always broken! I stood up from my desk and was about to go for a snack when I remembered that the vending-machine was broken too. So I sat back down on my chair, which nearly collapsed, and stared blankly at the screen for a while, hoping something interesting would happen. Something interesting distinctly failed to happen, but I did receive an e-mail.

I knew it was probably a virus or something similar, but I was just bored enough not to care, so I opened it.

It said in my inbox:

Why are you reading this, when you could be talking to a computer properly? Included in this message is something that will allow you to actually communicate with inanimate objects! Just click here.

I was utterly lost, but I was, again, just bored enough to actually bother pressing the button. When I did so, nothing happened for a few seconds. The computer made no apparent effort to do'anything at all. But then, out of the blue, or more accurately out of the computer-screen, came a stereotypical bolt of blue lightning that always appears in films when something really good or really bad is happening. In this case, whether it's good or bad is debatable. I think bad.

The lightning gave me quite a shock, I can tell you. Not the literal 'Oh, no, I'm on fire, now I'm dead.' kind of shock, but the 'Oh, dear, you frightened me.' kind. Which is strange, coming from a bolt of blue lightning. Anyway, for a few moments it had no ill effects on anything but my jangled nerves, but then '
'Gerroff me!'
'Help, I'm stuck!'
The voices came out of nowhere, and seemed to bypass my ears, heading straight for the brain. Even though I couldn't actually hear them, I somehow knew which directions they came from. The 'Help, I'm stuck!' came from the window, and the 'Gerroff me!' from directly beneath me. I stood up and looked down to see who was down there. No-one.

There was no-one there, but a second later, a voice said, after a deeply satisfied sigh:
'That's better.'
'Who's there?' I said in a voice probably much more high-pitched than usual.
'What, you can't see me? I'm right here, you idiot!'
'Where?'
'Right in front of you. Duh. Really, you just sat on me, what was that for?'
'I WHAT?!'
'Oh, don't tell me, you didn't notice me there. You, good sir, are an idiot.'

Was my chair talking to me? If it ' he ' was, I would have to find a psychiatrist later. For now, though, there were more pressing matters, like this:
'HELP ME!' It came from the window again. No-one was there, but that was where it came from. How could that be? Oh, right, the window was talking to me. Well, that clears everything right up. I'm glad to know that.

'Help!' the desperate cry repeated itself, and I ran from the office covering my ears and singing 'LALALALALALA!' However, I could still hear the computers all chatting busily away to themselves, showing off their Pentium processors and discussing the origins of the word 'gigabyte'.

I ran down the stupidly long staircase, and into several people, before I finally barged through the revolving door, which yelped in pain, and out into the street. The air was heavy with the inane chatter of the brickwork, and I decided to duck into the shop and get a snack to put my mind at ease. When I got in there, however, I could hear the muffins talking about how awful it was to be eaten, and I ran back out again. The till called me a cheapskate as I went.

When I stood, panting, outside the shop, I heard a particularly irritated mumble from nearby:
'Red, amber, green, what's it matter anyway? Expect me to tell the difference, the lousy idiots. I'm colour-blind, for lamppost's sake''
It was the traffic lights talking, I soon realised, before passing out into a conveniently placed bin, which expressed its gratitude at the large meal, saying I tasted like discarded three-day-old chicken. Apparently, it's a good thing.