1: A Working Machine

Before anyone gets the wrong idea about the picture, I enjoy carrots, okay? They're good right down to the last little morsel. It's as sweet as a niblet. I'm serious. The stuff I smoke is too good to have to smoke it right to the end like that. It was a dreary January morning, and Zeke was feeling it keenly. Being first in line for a seat on the bus meant he would wait the longest in the punishing sleet. When a careless motorist sprayed him, a question he'd been suppressing in his mind almost shouted its way out. But even to speak this question was wrong; for, if anyone in his present company could answer it, they would not now share his predicament. What was needed here was not enlightenment but endurance. He remembered how he used to play in the snow as a child, waiting to the last minute to return to the warmth of his home. He searched within for a trace of that happy, oblivious child, a warm memory to give him refuge... By daybreak, the forbidden words had been twice said by others while Zeke had held his tongue. But, when a torrent of brown slush was again hurled in his direction, it extinguished his resolve. 'Where is it?' he uttered in a broken voice. At last the bus appeared, its tall frame and luminous banner instantly recognizable in the distance. As it crawled toward him, Zeke could make out that it was packed solid with passengers. After coasting to a halt and opening its exit doors, Zeke noticed that no one got out at his stop. Well positioned, there was only enough room for he and one other passenger, an elegant blonde. They boarded and merged with the press of bodies, soon finding themselves pinned in an awkward intimacy. Alas, deprivation summarized the human condition in Zeke's mind, whether imposed by outer forces, as was momentarily obvious, or by accidental self-imposition. Though bleak, this outlook arrested false hopes. It didn't matter that her pelvis was rubbing up against his thigh. As soon as he stepped off the bus, she would forget all about him. He focused instead on a nearby conversation about a recent sports event and caught the phrase, they should have won. It took a while for a seat amid a group of teenagers to become available. I need a new one. Looking out the window offered no escape, as a long line of identical townhouses shouted we are all the same at him. Averting his eyes again, they fell upon a transit poster. We care. He might have believed it, were he headed for the hospital. It was time for a nap. He closed his eyes and set his mind adrift. An internal timer, finely tuned by routine, would alert him when he reached his stop. The bus deposited him in the heart of a sprawling industrial complex with no sidewalks. It still had a newspaper box that displayed the daily headline, They Should Have Won. He would need no further convincing. As he trudged forward, he knew what lay ahead, for it was always more of the same. Small wonder that whole years had slipped by unnoticed, unremembered. He had once believed in working, thinking it helped others. But he'd since come to learn that, for all his fine motives, whether anyone else really benefited from his labours was at best uncertain. And with his heart no longer committed, sheer momentum was all that was left to propel his body. Keeping his misgivings private, they made no difference to his supervisor, who only ever noticed his strong farm-boy's frame. He arrived at the warehouse entrance of his employer just as the buzzer sounded. Stepping aside, he let the retiring workers file past him. They were eager to get home and salvage a bit of fun from what was left of their day - sedentary enough to make up for all that effort. Relief would come tonight, but happiness would have to wait for the week-end. The doorway clear, he stepped into what the unfamiliar eye might mistake for an alien world, with its own murky sky and foul, dusty air; a planet ruled by an inanimate, cardboard race. Axle grind combined with Diesel groan in a shameless cacophony, through which a human voice cut with the words, 'Over here!' So Zeke was summoned to a disorganized pile. 'The blue things are over at the corner. Can you get the cardboardy ones in a straight line?' The instructor left and Zeke began piling boxes onto a trolley. Before long the floor was clear and he had his load in tow, destined for the far side of the warehouse. 'Hey, Zeke!' shouted someone above him as he rounded his first corner. It was Stan up on the line, the main portion of the conveyor system, which had been elevated to conserve floor space. Even as Stan faced Zeke, his deft hands were still able to seal the lids of every box that shot past him in a continuous train. Zeke sighed, for he knew his intelligence was about to be insulted. 'Party in my yacht tonight after work! We'll take the limo!' shouted Stan. Zeke pretended he didn't hear it and proceeded on his way, taking care not to stray outside the yellow lines of the safe zone. Even this could be something of a gauntlet, with metal protrusions and surprise obstacles along every step of it. One slip could result in the most grievous injuries or even death. He winced as he remembered the time he got his foot stuck in the belt. Lucky for him, he wore safety shoes with laces that don't stay tied. Little by little, forklifts whizzing past, he traversed the vast, concrete plane, until the stark, guillotine-like figure of the cutter appeared before him. It was well away from the main working areas, which must have been why it appealed to his nemesis, Reginald, a notorious slacker and loner. It was hard for any there to imagine this apparatus without Reginald in the picture, bringing down its heavy blade again and again, with an executioner's zeal. It took a few minutes for Zeke to clear a space along the wall for his boxes. Reginald was in talking range, but no words were exchanged between the two. When he was done, Zeke was given the choice of either working with Stan or working with Reginald. He took the steep stairs that would lead him eye-to-eye with Stan, but where the blaring radio might sufficiently drown out his voice. Faltering at the thought that his shift was only starting, he drew upon the enabling words of a bygone mentor. You're a working machine.
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