Colin the Photocopier Repair Polar Bear

by theidiotmachine

Even with the air conditioning on maximum, even just wearing a bathing suit, the office was too hot for Colin. His white fur was matted and he panted as he pushed the photocopier into the elevator. Everything was sweaty.

There was someone in the lift already, a balding man from accounts. He raised a single eyebrow and stepped back as Colin crammed himself and the machine into the tiny space. The doors closed. Colin tried his best smile.

The man looked away. 'I'm getting out on four.'

It's tough being a photocopier repair polar bear.

Thankfully, it was going up and Colin wanted to get out on the third floor; so when the lift pinged and the doors slid open, he exhaled in relief. He dragged the huge beige photocopier out into the lobby while the accountant pretended not to see him. Colin was always impressed at how humans failed to see a four hundred kilogram bear directly in front of them, particularly when that said bear could do with maybe just a little bit of help, thanks?

He huffed in frustration as he pulled the stupid machine behind him. He dearly wanted an ice bath and some sashmi, but he didn't get off work for another hour, and Sheena would be mad at him if he slacked off again. But then, Sheena always seemed to be mad at him, so maybe it wouldn't matter.

Colin had worked as a photocopier bear for about three months. He'd been designed as a pet for some rich, spoilt fool in Chelsea who hadn't realised just how big polar bears grew to; when he'd started getting properly big he'd been discarded like just another unfavoured car or personal assistant. Thankfully when he'd still been small and cute, he'd had a tutor who'd taught him to read and type on a special ruggedised keyboard. As a result, he could use the internet, so he could teach himself some basic tech skills; and this was how the temp agency had found him this job.

He wasn't very good at it.

Sheena was waiting for him. She glowered as he manoeuvred the photocopier into the repair bay, and tutted at the ragged scratch that he'd left on the machine.

'You cause more damage getting them and putting them back then you fix bringing them in,' she said.

Colin tried his smile again. He'd been reading self-help books, and projecting cheerful confidence seemed to be a theme. One of the things they suggested was breaking down boundaries with inclusive language. He decided he'd try some.

'Hi Sheena. How are you? How is your husband/wife/partner/mother/father/children/or other appropriate close relative?' he asked, hoping he'd memorised the order correctly. It was an odd thing to ask, but then, humans were odd, and he wanted to do it by the book.

She stared at him for a second, her eyes drilling into him. Then she turned and left the room.

Well, that wasn't what he was going for, but it had got rid of her, so maybe this small talk stuff was in the right direction.

#

That evening Colin went to a robot bar in Acton. His best friend in the world, a street sweeper called Ricky, had suggested they meet up. Colin liked Ricky for a lot of reasons, but one of them was that he was the first person he'd met who was on the same scale as him. Ricky was bright orange and the size of a small car, and much larger when he had all his street cleaning gear on. He was tough and battered, and when Colin accidentally scratched him it just blended in with the rest. He was also, for reasons that Colin didn't understand, Welsh.

'Everyone's gotta come from somewhere. I come from Newport, see?'

Ricky called good things 'tidy', and his friends were all called 'butt' or 'butty' which Colin thought was a rude joke but turned out just to mean 'buddy'. Ricky laughed, and joked, and told riotous stories of what he saw on the streets in the early hours of the mornings, which changed with every telling. He had a joy that lifted Colin up, and Colin treasured every moment he had with him.

They had first met that night when Colin had been let loose onto the streets of Chelsea, discarded by his previous owners. He'd wandered west howling with grief, scaring the drunks and the tramps. Ricky had just happened to be cleaning, and had found the bear as he sobbed, pooled in light from the street lamps, surrounded by food scavenged from bins. Ricky had come up to him and extended a great metal arm around Colin's back, and had told in that it would be OK. He helped him sort out somewhere to live, and helped him get him his job. As a result, on the nights when Ricky invited Colin out, he always, always came.

The robot bar was a converted warehouse in an industrial park: it was the only place in the area big enough to house the lifters and diggers that frequented the place. It was all concrete and steel, genuine industrial chic. The owner had covered it with little lights, so that the walls and ceiling sparkled as if they were decorated with stars.

Strictly speaking, Colin wasn't allowed in the robot bar; but the haulers and cleaners had seen a kindred spirit in him and had successfully appealed for an exemption. The robots didn't drink or eat; but they played music, and had open mic nights, and square dancing, and there was a section at the back where some of the smaller ones played sports. Once they'd agreed that Colin should be part of their community, they'd found a skip, cleaned it as thoroughly as only robots could, and then filled it with ice water for the nights that Colin came in. It was there that he was sitting while chatting with his friends.

'I saw you in the paper yesterday, butt,' said Ricky. 'The polar bear of Earl's Court they called you.'

Colin took a swig of beer from a bucket, another concession from the robots.

'Yeah, I saw that too. People have always taken photos of me, but it's getting silly. It's hard to go out now.'

'How do you travel around?' asked Lisa. She was a huge haulier, a great mass of metal and pistons. She was learning to play jazz saxophone. Ricky and her had a thing going.

'I use the roads, like a car,' said Colin. 'I just go in the slow lanes. It's OK, except for the cyclists.'

That elicited a groan of sympathy from the listening machines.

'I nearly ran over a guy the other night,' said Ricky. 'Drunk as a lord, he was. Singing at the top of his voice on the back of his stupid bike. I said nearly ran over, because all he did was cycle up to me, stop, and fall over! I went round him. It means there's a dirty patch on the Tottenham Court Road, so stay away from there until next week.'

'I nearly ran over a guy who jumped a red yesterday,' said Colin. 'I had to jump over him. And he just shouted at me!' He shook his head, sadly.

'How's the job, Colin?' asked Lisa.

Colin shrugged and changed the subject.

#

Colin was laid off from his job two weeks later. He'd been late every morning that week for the daily standup meeting, and he was getting more stressed by Sheena's barbed comments. On the Friday, he'd gotten stuck in the turnstiles. He couldn't bear the idea of being late again. In desperation he'd pushed too hard and, with a noise like a car crash, turned the gate into scrap. He held up the sections to the security guards as they ran over to him.

'I can probably fix this?' he said, trying his smile.

They escorted him off the premises immediately.

He'd been living under a railway bridge in a rundown part of Hammersmith. It wasn't a particularly nice part of town, and it wasn't really a house, just a storage area; but it was all he'd been able afford on his meagre salary. And he wouldn't be able to afford that now, either.

He crawled in, pushed the corrugated iron door closed behind him, and howled, sadly.

#

Three hours later, there was a knock on his door. Colin wiped away his tears and lumbered over, wondering what fresh hell was waiting for him. He peeked through a gap between the sheets of corrugated iron.

Outside was a street cleaner.

'What's up, Colin, butt? You're making enough noise to wake the dead. In fact, I think I saw one of the dearly departed wandering up the road from Margravine Cemetery.'

'Oh Ricky,' said Colin, holding back the tears. 'I've been laid off. I broke... Well, I broke quite a lot of stuff, actually, but the thing I broke at the end was... Oh it doesn't matter. You don't care, and no one else does either. I don't know what I'm going to do...'

'Now don't be a big softy, Colin. Let me in, and we'll figure it out. Do you drink tea? Is that a thing that polar bears do? We could have a cup and talk about it. Well, you could.'

'No, I don't drink tea. But come in, anyway, Ricky.'

And so Ricky undocked from his street cleaning gear, leaving the great metal apparatus of brushes and bags on the street; and he whirred into Colin's house.

'Oh dear. You've let this place go now, haven't you?' said Ricky, looking around at the buckets and boxes and bits of fish lying everywhere.

'There just doesn't seem any point, Ricky,' said Colin, following him into his house. 'I'm just... not very good, at anything. I'm just me, and there's no one else like me.'

'Oh don't be silly. You're great. I thought there were other animals like you? Genetically engineered non-human sapients. Is that what they call you? Gens, is it?'

Colin plopped himself down on a dirty pile of beanbags.

'Yeah, but they're all cats and dogs and monkeys. I went to a meet-up in Notting Hill a couple of weeks ago, after you said I should try and meet some. I... I couldn't even fit through the door into their little building. It was so humiliating. There was a labradoodle who was nice and came out and brought me canapés, but I didn't have anything in common with any of them. They were all working in advertising and marketing. Whenever I said I was a photocopier repairer, they just all sort of looked away and found someone else to talk to.'

Ricky flashed his orange lights in annoyance. 'Colin, you need to pull yourself together,' he said. 'It doesn't matter if you're not employed. You can hand your notice in on this place, and we'll figure out somewhere for you to sleep. Lisa has a nice little garage in Baron's Court where she could probably put you up; she's more space than she knows what to do with. And I'll help you get another job. It'll all work out fine.'

Colin blew his nose into a pillowslip.

'Thanks, Ricky. I don't know what to do.'

'You'd do it for me, Colin, you'd do it for me.'

'By the way, how did you know to find me?'

'Well, here's the thing. Grace, you know the gravel hauler that sometimes comes into the pub, she said that she heard this amazing singing. Sounded low and sad and beautiful. She said it was exactly what it would sound like if you played Tom Jones backwards at quarter speed. I said, I know who makes that noise when he's sad. And here I am.'

'Thanks Ricky.'

'Say. You think you can make some of them noises for Grace on the next open mic night? Have a nice sing along? Maybe it would take your mind off it all?'

Colin shrugged. 'Sure. Whatever.'

#

On the night of the open mic night, Colin shivered with stress. He'd never performed anything for anyone. He'd been singing quietly to himself all week, as he packed up his possessions and loaded them onto Lisa. She told him how musical he was, and how much she enjoyed the noises he could make. However, here, standing on the stage, in front of a warehouse full of robots, he was terrified.

I could run, he thought. Just say I've got a cold. But... they've all been so kind to me. And Ricky and Lisa's at the front, waving. I can't let them down.

'And now,' said the announcer, a plasterer called Leopold, 'we have everyone's favourite polar bear, who's going to sing for us. Take it away, Colin!'

The robots cheered and honked and flashed their lights and generally made polite noises. Colin stepped forward, into the spotlight. The mic was on a stand at head height. He didn't dare touch it in case he broke it. So he walked up to it, took a deep breath, and sang.

He sang all his sorrow, and his disappointment, and his loneliness, and his stress. And his deep, deep voice, lower than any puny human lungs could make, filled the warehouse, and it echoed round the room and fell from the little lights in the sky like a gentle rain. He sang an old Elvis number, two octaves below where the King could sing, and it sounded like the ocean mourning for its lost love.

At the end there was silence. Stunned, amazed silence. He was about to shrug and walk away to hide his embarrassment; but then the robots broke out into the loudest applause he'd ever heard, hooting and revving, laughing and cheering. They clapped and egged him on, and he sang another number, and then another; and eventually, his voice hoarse and his ears ringing, they let him down from the stage, applauding and calling out their happy congratulations.

Polar bears like the cold; but inside Colin was a warmth he'd never felt before and he rather liked.

'Colin,' said Ricky, as the bear settled into his skip, slurping on his bucket of beer. 'I took the liberty of posting a video of that. It's gone nuts.'

Lisa smiled at them both. 'I did too. I know a producer: I did her drive three weeks ago. She sent me a message asking if you want to record something.'

Colin looked at them, confused and amazed.

'Butty, you might never need to repair another photocopier ever again...' said Ricky. 'Cheers.'