First
and a Half World
The sun is barely peeking over the
horizon as we begin our trek towards work. Groggily trudging into
the site superintendents trailer. A brief respite of chilled air
washing over us as we scrawl our names on a sheet of paper. Marking
down who were are, the day it is and who we belong to. All too
quickly we step back outside, the sun reaching down and quickly
warming the air as we venture towards our work. The air is heavy
with the miasma of burnt dust and the occasional hacking cough from
my co-workers. Their lungs working overtime to protect themselves
from the unknown toxins and hazards being thrown into the air from the
heavy equipment. Only the few of us who were wise enough (or perhaps
weak enough) to coat our lungs with tar from the small white sachets
have avoided the cough. Dirty hands all grasp the same door handle
as we what feels like a descent into an earlier time. Each one
grasping where hundreds of other hands have while covered in all
manner of filth that is passed throughout the group like an
infectious legend. Even if it doesn't take root in one of us we are
the host to pass it further along the job site and beyond into the
clean world that we return to at the end of the day. Sure there are
stations every so often to sanitize, but only God knows when they
were last serviced and refilled. No one even bothers to stop there
any more; no one needs that disappointment at the start of their
shift.
Down the corridors we go, electrical
wires hanging haphazardly about like vines in a jungle with no way to
tell if they are live or dead. One can only hope that the others
that have gone before us have done their job and properly subdued
them so that they pose no threat to us. On we go before arriving at
a massively heavy steel door. Locked with an arcane wheel and key we
wait for one of blue guards to arrive and work their magic. With a
grunt and a few mystic beeps the door opens and whatever traps and
alarms laid in wait for the unwary are disarmed, preventing a horde
of taciturn and pedantic guards from descending upon us and
questioning our every action.
And so the day has begun. The soldier
pulls up a chair and watches us with coffee in hand as we begin our
work. Plying our minds and bodies in an effort to force the mystical
devices held in the steel racks to bend to our will. Day and night
we slave to bend and subdue them to make them perform the tasks we
require. Start. Stop. Restart.
