The exercise:
Write about: the misery factory.
I have used that term, at various points, to describe both my sons. Usually when they're teething, but not always.
Anyway, with Miles commencing his latest round of mouth pain I figured it was as good a time as any to use it as a writing prompt.
Mine:
Smoke stacks, rusting and cracked, pump thick black filth into the ever-grey sky overhead. Hunched over workers can be seen as they pass broken glass windows, their moans of pain seeping out again and again. The encircling fence and its gates await repair by a maintenance crew who have never been there.
Inside the machinery is loud like a crowd of giant metal robots fighting, the lighting is flickering where it works at all, and the halls are stained with mud, sweat, and blood. The assembly lines have never ceased, at least not in recent memory. Despite their missing gears they continue to belch out suffering and fear.
Somewhere an alarm sounds, a report prints, a worker reads it and frowns. It doesn't seem fair, not by a hair, but he knows it's not his plan - it's out of his hands. He has one job to do and that's to see it through.
He brings the tattered paper to the required booth. The man there is uncouth - but very good at his job. So all too soon Baby Miles will begin to get another tooth...
4 comments:
Well, I can see how they might feel like misery factories, but I'm not sure they'd enjoy knowing that's how you described them :) I'm still recommending whiskey as the solution to the problem, whether it's you or Miles that's drinking it!
I like your description of your misery factory. It's got a kind of Victorian feel to it, I could easily see this as something your steamship captain would encounter (it was probably a few months ago that you last wrote about them). The stained halls and the assembly lines are very evocative as well, and I liked that your rhyming prose creeps in here and there, unobtrusively. Nice writing!
I hope you're liking where your suggestion of night-birds has taken me, by the way, as I'm rather liking them. I needed something other than the Ilmatu when I wanted to be direct about darkness :)
The misery factory
Empty bottles clinked as they were set down on the porch, and Jake's father sighed. The sunset was ending and the darkness was folding around them like a blanket. The clouds above, smoke-infused and ashen, were obscuring the stars and the moon and there was a faint breeze starting up that tugged lightly at shirt-sleeves and collars.
"Where do they come from?" asked Jake. Somewhere above them something shrieked, but it didn't sound like any bird he knew. "The night birds, that is."
"The Misery Factory," said his father like it should have been obvious. "It's where all'n boggits and goblicks are made."
Jake grinned, barely visible now. "That's a story for young'un's, dad," he said. "Is there a nest of them hereabouts, or are they an infestation?"
"In-fest-tation," said his dad. "They taught y'all all the big words didn't they?"
"Fine, is there one nest or lots, then?"
His dad chuckled and stepped back inside to get more beers. His voice was slightly muffled as he called back "Don't take on so, it's all funnin', boy. There's no nests, there's just the Factory." He reappeared, the bottles already opened and icy cold and passed one to Jake. "Run by the Corporation."
"You're serious?" Jake frowned, but the expression was lost in the gloom now. Faint light from indoors made the bottles shine faintly, but faces were just pale blobs.
"Ayup. The Corporation set up here in the late eighties, shortly before y'all were birthed and they brought promises and hopes and visions. They were shiny promises, bright hopes, and astounding visions, and they were wondrous enough that we all wondered along with them, and then we all wandered along beside them. Was a wonderful time, too, at first. But then we came as to realise that the Factory was the Misery Factory and that the visions were illusions and the promises were shiny with gilt and the hopes weren't our hopes. Wasn't so much fun then."
"Mum worked at the Factory," said Jake slowly. His beer was half-full and suddenly it didn't seem like enough.
"Ayup, and she was there for the birthing of the night birds. I buried her three months later, and I wish I had the proof that it was the night-birds that took her."
The breeze strengthened a little and tugged insistently at Jake's collar. The hairs on the back of his arm stood up as it tickled him.
"The night-birds killed mum?"
"Not so much as. The birthing of them took her, I think. She came home that day deliriously happy and stayed that way till she died, laughing and giggling in my arms like she was a dement."
"What did they-"
"They took her balance. They took the misery that rightly y'all have to keep y'all grounded and they gave it to the night-birds. She couldn't be sad iff'n she tried."
Something shrieked overhead again, and this time it sounded more like a human scream.
"What do the night-birds need misery for?"
Jake's dad stood up abruptly. "It's too late to be out here," he said. "They're being abroad already. We should go in."
The suggestion that they stay outside and finish talking died in Jake's throat as the shriek happened a third time. The two men went in, and Jake locked the door behind them.
"Dad-"
Something thumped heavily against the door, and his father turned round, pale-faced and wide-eyed.
"Keep that door shut, boy!"v
I hope you don't mind me borrowing, Greg! You do desperate despair much better than I do.
-------------
The knob began to turn. Jake threw all his weight against it, but with a slow creak the lock gave way and the door inched open. A black claw pushed it's way through the crack. Jake pushed with all his might and forced the door shut again, against the claw. A shriek that sounded like a woman's scream shook the house. In the next instant, the door fell inward, over Jake, under the weight of many black, skeletonal birds.
Jake's father yelled as he yanked Jake up. "Move it, boy! This way!" He propelled Jake down the hall, into the kitchen, and down the cellar stairs. He slammed the cellar door shut and Jake realized it was much more substantial than the front door.
His father shot several bolts into place before he continued down the stairs. "I put tha' door in a few years ago. Don' want th' night birds comin' down here." The door looked like it belonged in a bank, closing off the vault. "I do mos' mah livin' down here now'days," he continued.
The basement was finished now, and actually quite nice, a far cry from the dirt-floored cellar Jake remembered. "Dad, you can't live like this, though. Tomorrow morning, you come with me back to the city. I can set you up in an apartment near the theater. I'll see you every day that I'm not touring."
"You're talkin' fancy agin, boy," said his father. "I was born here, an' I'll die here. 'Sides, I have an idea that parta yer mom is trapped in those birds, an' I won't leave her."
Greg - no, I imagine not. So far I'm fairly certain I've refrained from calling either of them that at a point in their lives when they would understand what it meant. So far.
Thank you for the kind words on mine, I quite enjoyed writing it. And thank you for the wastelands reminder - that tale had slipped from my mind but is now back on my prompt list, so hopefully I'll be returning to it soon.
Yes, well, it is certainly working as a dark theme for you. Wonderful dialogue, again, and I'm enjoying watching the story unfold. Some interesting developments in this entry, particularly with that ending...
Morganna - nicely continued, milady. That 'an' I won't leave her' at the end was a pretty good punch in the gut.
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