Shuffle was a dangerous setting for Sarah's iPod.
The only problem was that she only owned an iPod Shuffle.
Well, there were really a number of problems. They included the fact that she had only the faintest idea how to work the blasted thing, the fact that Toby tended to subtly (in that oh so precocious and adorable way of his) ask if she used his gifts, and that she often tended not to listen to the music she was listening to until halfway through a song.
Oh, and it was haunted.
She had to admit, staring at the pink MP3 player not half the size of a deck of cards that it was probably not haunted or by its inherent nature "evil." No, it was simply a tool used by evil creatures to annoy her.
She sat down at her kitchen table to grade the in-class essays she'd had her students write on "Rappaccini's Daughter" (because she was an evil, despicable teacher who not only wouldn't let the students watch a movie in class without some sort of retribution, but also made them read the story the movie was based on). Partly out of stubbornness and partly for the simple desire for music, Sarah turned on her iPod and struggled with the earbuds. The headphones from the eighties that ate one's head hadn't been this complicated—and they had been decent at blocking out sound (she had actually once been shocked at the thunderstorm blocked out by an eight-track and brand-new headphones). But no, everything had to be so small these days.
It always started out innocent enough—something from high school, like Blondie, The Cars, or Duran Duran. She could see Toby loading those onto it for her, since it was cheaper for him to get her MP3s than buy the collectors' CDs. But after the high school hits were done it got…weird. It would start playing David Bowie songs. Sarah had no real love for David Bowie music—she'd just never grown to like it the way she had other things. The man himself tended to creep her out for reasons she couldn't fathom. But, still, Toby was less knowledgeable when it came to eighties hits, so Sarah would just turn down the volume and focus on one student's argument about symbols in the short story compared to their presentation in the video. Then, during a particularly venomous attack of the English Language by one of her students, something slightly melancholy would play. As she scrawled notes about basic rules of English she had covered in class, Sarah would turn up the music.
Life can be easy
It's not always swell
Don't tell me the truth hurts, little girl
And Sarah would curse along with the music and punch the Next button on the defenseless media player. Her iPod would retaliate.
You remind me of the babe
What babe?
The babe with the power
What power?
At that point, since Sarah simply had no idea why the song was vaguely familiar, she would let it alone. It sounded a bit like Bowie, but she had seventeen more essays to grade, at least two thirds of which would be illegible. What did they teach Jr. High students these days? Obviously not penmanship.
Then, as one rather scatterbrained student spent the entire paper gushing about the romantic conflict between Giavoni and Beatrice, Sarah's attention would drift and snap back to her iPod.
…every thrill has gone,
Wasn't too much fun at all.
But I'll be there for you—oo—oo
And Sarah would jab at the Next button literally faster than she could blink. She held it down at she chose another essay at random, finding it belonged to a particularly pessimistic student who sadly had no talent for either satire or poetic creativity. She sighed and let go of her iPod as she scanned the paper. It looked like it was about Nathaniel Hawthorne venting all his life's disappointment in one short story. She rubbed the bridge of her nose.
You starve and near exhaust me!
"Tch. Don't they all? Five weeks to work something fun into the lesson plan, and this is what I get? 'Those actors are so old!' 'That's not what was in the story!' 'We had a reading assignment?' Ingrates."
Everything I've done I've done for you
"And that's enough out of you," Sarah said severely to the MP3 player. The silence was oppressive as she graded three suspiciously similar papers. Sarah rose from the table and dug her American Literature seating chart out of her schoolbag. Two of the students sat near one another, and the third was across the room. It wasn't a very original topic anyway—Rappaccini's motives and actions and how they affected his life. If she'd given them the essay to work on overnight, Sarah had some faith they might have turned something really interesting up. She sat in a heavy silence grading the three papers, her attention drifting back to the iPod.
"If you can behave, I won't turn you off. Understand?" The small device made no answer and Sarah struggled uncomfortably with the earbuds.
Ain't got no problems (no problems)
Ain't got no suitcase (no suitcase)
Sarah grinned. "I believe we understand each other now." She had a few papers left to go, so very few… And the iPod seemed to have ended its reckless streak, and had gone to some hideously mediocre instrumental that specifically seemed very sophomore-year-of-high-school. Until…
No one can blame you
For walking away
But too much rejection, oh-oh
No love injection-na-na
"Do you honestly have nothing better to do with your time?" she snapped at the infuriatingly smug plastic device.
And so Sarah would, invariably, stuff it into her sock drawer, glare at its dwindling population, and pretend nothing at all had happened. Then she would glare meaningfully at the also infuriatingly smug barn owl which seemed to roost outside her picture window on the particularly cursed evenings.