Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Before my many years’ service in a restaurant, I attended a top science university. The year was 2003 and I was finishing the project that would win me my professorship. My fortysecond birthday had made a lonely visit the week before, and I was once again by myself in the flat. Like countless other mornings, I ordered a bagel from the toaster.
‘Yes, sir!’ it replied with robotic relish, and I began the day’s work on the project. It was a magnificent machine, the thing I was makingcapable of transferring the minds of any two beings into each other’s bodies. As the toaster began serving my bagel on to a plate, I realised the project was in fact ready for testing. I retrieved the duck and the catwhich I had bought for this purpose from their containers, and set about calibrating the machine in their direction. Once ready, I leant against the table, holding the bagel I was too excited to eat, and initiated the transfer sequence. As expected, the machine whirred and
hummed into action, my nerves tingling at its synthetic sounds. The machine hushed, extraction and injection nozzles poised, scrutinizing its targets. The cat, though, was suddenly gripped by terrible alarm. The brute leapt into the air, flinging itself onto the machine. I watched in horror as the nozzles swung towards me; and, with a terrible, psychedelic whirl of colours, felt my mind wrenched from its sockets.
When I awoke, moments later, I noticed first that I was two feet shorter. Then, I realised the lack of my limbs, and finally it occurred to me that I was a toaster. I saw immediately the solution to the situation – the machine could easily reverse the transfer but was then struck by my utter inability to carry this out. After some consideration, using what I supposed must be the toaster’s onboard computer; I devised a strategy for rescue. I began to familiarise myself with my new body : the grill, the bread bin, the speaker and the spring mechanism. Through the device’s rudimentary eye with which it served its creations – I could see the internal telephone on the wall. Aiming carefully, I began propelling slices of bread at it. The toaster was fed by a large stock of the stuff, yet as more and more bounced lamely off the phone, I began to fear its exhaustion. Toasting the bread before launch proved a wiser tactic. A slice of crusty wheat knocked the receiver off its cradle, and the immovable voice of the reception clerk answered. Resisting the urge to exclaim my unlikely predicament, I called from the table : “I’m having a bit of trouble up here, Room 91. Could you lend a hand ?” “Certainly, sir, there’s a burst water pipe on the floor above, I suppose I’ll kill two birds with one stone and sort you out on the way.” The clerk arrived promptly, and after a detailed and horrifying explanation, finally agreed to press the button on the machine and bring me back to my original state.