Playlist for this post
Zed Zone was the arse end of nowhere. It housed the downtrodden workers from the protein plant and those unfortunate enough to require a stay at the Reset, Rehabilitation and Decriminalisation Unit just across the road. It was a dreary place no matter how clement the weather was; all corroded chemical barrels and blocked drains spilling gloop from every punctured orifice and grate.
Mickey was going to escape it one day. She had big plans and high aspirations. She often looked at the glittering glass and steel edifices of the far away city of Peugelum, former home to the first president of The Deep and seat of the artisans of Gogh, Monet and Warhol and imagined herself in one of its spacious apartments with room to walk other than sideways between her bed and the wall and a bathroom all of her own in which to enjoy her once a week shower. That would be really something she decided as she stood in line for her turn to use the bathroom in flip flops and lime green bathrobe. She’d scheduled a three minute slot but as usual the guy in flat number eight had hogged it for a full nine minutes. She tried complaining to the caretaker in his minute cupboard cum office. But for some reason he felt that the tenant in flat number eight deserved to be cut some slack. Mickey had other ideas about what ought to be cut and it definitely wasn’t slack.
Terrified of being late she rushed back to her apartment avoiding the puddles of sludge along the way and grabbed the dented red bucket from under her kitchen sink. Eyes closed and lips parted she sat over it relieving herself with equal measures of shame and bliss while the rain torrented off the tin roof and down the rickety down spoutings. One day she wouldn’t have to do this she told herself. One day she’d be in Peugelum listening to Soughengrau and eating square after square of silky brown chocolate – the real stuff too, not the rubbish they sold to the Zed Zoners at the market on Saturday.
When she was done she washed in two inches of soapy tepid water and climbed into her dusky blue coveralls, the ones with the badly mended pocket. Beneath the arms they were still sweaty from the day before and the day before that but she solved that problem with a little splash of synthetic rose water to hide the smell. She looked in the mirror and smiled, fluffing her sandy brown hair into something approximating a reasonable arrangement. It always amazed her how a combination of fragrance, esters, acids and alcohol could make a person feel brighter. There was magic in its atoms.
There wasn’t time for much else, although she did manage a quick breakfast of reconstituted egg and toast, part of which she ate on the way. The juddering tram slid along the track allowing her the time to read the news bulletins. It took her past the market place and across the green where she had played as a child on the big blue slide with the neon orange steps, till they reached the stop at the top of junction thirty six. She got off there with a crowd of nurses, janitors, admin staff and doctors and scurried along to the Reset, Rehabilitation and Decriminalisation Unit or the R.R.D for short where she clocked in using her slightly bent lanyard. Thankfully she wasn’t late. Her squeaky wheeled trolley stood waiting like a faithful stead right outside the electric shock therapy room. Together they trundled down to the supply store to stock up on an extra bottle floor cleaner and some polish.
“Blasted temps always gotta mess up everything,” she grumbled, when she discovered that the dust cloths had been put back amongst the polish cloths. She bent down to sort through them, her knees cracking like twigs. Her absorption in righting things meant that she didn’t see the neon lights flicker. She did however hear a hissing sound.
“Somebody there?” she called.
No one answered so she went back to her task. Moments later the lights flickered again and the hissing sound returned, only louder than before. A few steps away from her the air shimmered and glowed as the molecules were rapidly ionized. Before she had chance to react the energy dissipated leaving a terrifying apparition standing directly in front of her – a man shining and naked; the colour of hematite. Her brain tried to tell her mouth to scream but the signal never arrived. She stumbled against the light switch. Everything went dark. She struggled to get up, her feet slipping on bin bags and equipment. Her breath hitched. He was close. She could feel the warmth from his body even though he hadn’t yet touched her. Suddenly a scorching hand reached out pressing her stomach and another rested gently on her forehead. There was a strange jolting sensation followed by a rapidly encroaching blackness and then a big inexplicable nothing that swallowed her whole taking her nowhere and everywhere all at once.
When she came to she was still in the R.R.D. Unit but not to clean floors or dust lockers. She was lying in bed dizzy as a top, trussed up in a fraying strait jacket and strangely bloated in her abdominal region. According to the nurses hovering round her bed she’d been unconscious for nine months and had consequently lost her job and her flat – not to mention quite a few of her marbles.
© 2024, SamanthaJWright.com. All rights reserved.