Flash Fiction

The bar code failed to work when it was scanned. The scan gun moved again over the proper area upon the neck of the prone servitor. It still refused to beep, beep, beep. Instead it trilled liked a piano. The process, as well understood as it was, was repeated oft and still refused to produce required outcome.

After some time it was decided that the chief servite should be called. And the ceremony was made. Upon his arrival the supplicant servite was laid head before his chief. The special scan gun was brought and the chief servite delicately unwrapped the appropriate apparatus. On passing his ultra sensitive gun over the neck of the servant all that could be coerced was an incrementing piano trill. The head servite tried yet again, and yet again the trill trilled. A second supplicant was called for but this merely produced a beep, beep. And a third. But the forth trilled.

Tension mounted. The chief servite grew red in the face, called for more, and the more that came the more a piano trilled. The more a piano trilled, the redder the chief servite got, the greater the tension. It built and built until heads rolled and eventually the chief servite twittered like a piano amongst the blood and bar codes.