Wednesday August 30th, 2017

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...