The Worker

You were a diligent worker. Your wife said so at least, but she has rarely had a chance to see you lately due extended shifts at the plant. Lest the State succumb to foreign powers, all invaluable workers were to put in more hours. However, you had found the strain of the current economic situation, due to powers outside of the nation’s control, to be overbearing to your senses. 

It would be around this time that you were first late to work.

Normally, you were avid and keen to be first in line at your station, an impeccable example of how such a key worker should act. You worked with a team under you at 21B. Electrical machinery to power State generators. Turnover was high so maybe that’s why you were indifferent to most others when it came to socializing. One short and compact looking individual named Ralph must have stood out, as he was the only person you would be seen with consistently at lunch. You paid no mind to the semantics of the chatter, be it about some film you’d never seen, or some rumor you didn’t want to be bothered with, a good worker need not waste time thinking about petty squabbles. Perhaps this time though, you paid attention to his frantic chittering, particularly the part that revolved around the rain that day. It was the last time you saw Ralph. You found out the next day he was transferred, and maybe the stress from this event manifested itself as your delayed appearance to work the day after.

It could be that, due to the nature of your work, you began to tire of the mundane. However your short appearances in your residence at the Rose Arc Complex were met with some fortune. A brand new varnished Model SC1911W, provided generously by the State, that matched the decor of your residential chamber well.  For the safety of the state and the security of the people, everyone is prohibited from leaving. Through State provided television and channels, a glimpse can be seen into the affairs of those unfortunate enough to not be under its protection. On the channels your crisp new television set provided, The Weather was the highlight of your day. Maybe in part due to your new luxury or Ralph’s last ramblings, you paid close attention to the single, large and dirty window that lit the entrance hall. You thought that nature was wonderful. Maybe that it was even better than the bland & brown scenery you were so accustomed to.

The forecast is always correct, as you would be well aware from watching The Weather, when perfect weather with a blazing sun is forecast, that window would shine with intensity of the great beyond. If, however, a startling thunderstorm was predicted, you might note the ferocity at which raindrops battered themselves against that singular pane of glass. These perfect reports would always be followed by the mantra of our great people, “Working hard for the State, to secure the future of the State.”

Or your favorite; “You, are a diligent worker, of the State.”

One morning as you were eagerly waiting for your shift to begin at the Plant, you found yourself running into quite the conundrum. Outside the drab entrance hall, past it’s artificial potted plants, past the spiraled wall decor and portraits of our beloved founders, you could see a menacing grey sky in the window. This would be of no concern to you if you had not remembered Wilma, our forecaster who would brave the elements to tell us what it was like out there, beaming at you and informing you that today would be a wonderfully sunny day, and that you were a strong worker providing essential labor.  ‘Why would Wilma lie through those pearly whites?’ The case may be that your nerves made you question the validity of the reporter, rather than what was before your eyes. You then questioned the details over Ralph’s last conversation. 

Making your way to the window, you found yourself on the precipice of something. A strange aura, a humming you could feel in your core, reverberating, as you approached the gateway to the outside world. It called to you as the North Star does to lost travelers. You could feel viscous waves of unease coating you with every inch your hand dared come closer to the glass. The dread soaking into your skin weighed so heavily on your arm you must have considered the possibility of your limbs not working anymore. Your feeble hand pressed onto the glass.  

There was give. 

Your curiosity was just too much, you mustered all of your power, all of what you were worth, against that window. 

The panel came off and with it, life as you knew it. Nothing more than an echoed clatter to the hall, but the “glass pane” that fell meant so much more. It plummeted past the wall and you saw what lay beyond this now empty visage of a window frame. Something must have clicked in your head and that is why you were late to work that day.

In a single moment you threw it all away, your comfortable living, your secure position, and even your family. Your poor wife. You leapt through the gaping hole in your reality and began to flee. You ran through endless industrial tunnels, the smell of petroleum, sulfur, and rubber prolific in your nostrils. A low vibrating noise matched the falling feeling inside you, and your rushing made your breath heavy and your body damp.

You were not late due to the haunting spirit of your short friend, yet you might as well have been. After running through the rat-way that felt alien but familiar in a way that made you head hurt, an entrance way unlike the angular twists and turns of the corridors caught your wearying eye. A metallic door of nautical fashion, with a circular porthole window. You would have missed it in the near utter darkness, if not for the singular and dim overhead light source. You caught your breath and made the bold choice to peek inside. You saw the set of The Weather. It must have felt treacherous to you that it did not take place outside, but here in this room. You saw men in unfamiliar clothing, working unrecognizable machines and operatus. 

You saw Wilma. 

Wilma saw you. 

You reeled back at your detection and took off again. You continued to try and make some kind of ‘escape’ inside of this metal labyrinth, wishing not to meet it’s Minotaur. 

If the mundaneness of your old life was the causation of your degradation into treachery, well then, I’m sure meeting the beast was the jolt of excitement you went perusing for. A lumbering titan of a man who bellowed down the tunnels at you, and chased you through this maze of unchanging colors. The clay reds, the dark blues, the machine grays all blending into your head as you were chased by this thing, this antibody rooting you out of this organism you had invaded. This organism you were once a part of. You thought you knew, but did you really? Your mind faltered at every corner, and there were many.

Out of breath and comfortable that you had given your assailant the slip, you dove onto your knees around one of the many geometric corners, grasping your chest. The map you had been drawing in your head was in vain, now a scrambled mess of fear of the unknown, fear of being alone in this place forever, fear of there being no escape of exit. Questions buzzed around your head like hungry mosquitoes. Does my boss know what I’ve done? Did he know about this? Who are they? The questions you wondered about why you had never asked, burned and felt like they wanted escape through your eyes. You curled helplessly against the steel and rubber, holding back tears. The humming became too much and seemed to shift and move anything that could have been perceived as stable in your cone of vision. 

You scrambled back to your feet, like a feral animal desperate to be freed from the hunter’s trap. In this world full of incomprehensibility, you believed that the only way to escape this newfound delirium was to find out the truth. Not in small heavily filtered pieces on a screen, not through porthole windows, and not through chases that left your heart palpitating hard enough to break free of it’s aortic shackles. You ran and followed the tunnels unnatural upward slopes, the unseen peak beckoning you with enlightenment. You still had a tug of hope in your heart that maybe this was all going to turn out fine, that you would be able to return home to your wife, and you would get up early tomorrow like nothing ever happened. 

You ran for what felt like eons, and after a few close shaves with the lumbering beast, whose changing tones and pitches made your brain feel like a wet rag being wrung dry, you found yourself in another corridor. Corrugated steel formed the ceiling, and the same meshed metal flooring greeted you. Accompanying the variously unimaginatively colored pipes that splintered across the walls, there was a door. It was dimly lit, in a similar fashion to the door to the weather station. Your hand ran over the round, rusted door knob, and it squealed with resistance. Once inside the humming died and you felt that this might be a place for reprieve, but your eyes were drawn to an old poster. A worker, in an identical set of blue overalls, stood with his chest out and a beaming smile. Hanging over his head read the words, “Diligence like no other - The Workers Project." You swallowed and a stone fell down to the well of your stomach. What was the meaning of this? Was that supposed to be you?

Your eyes could barely focus on the strangely minimalist font, the meaning must have sunk in because you let out a terrible cry. With your mind so overloaded, you couldn’t hold in your screams anymore. A rabbit, however, should not stop when it is being chased. When the beasts leapt upon you crying in the room, it occurred to you that they were but mere men. Perhaps your insulting beliefs towards them encouraged them in knocking you out, rather than your imminent need for incarceration.

You will be happy to hear that such incarceration will soon be over. Your interrogation has finished, and your neural patterns will be analyzed to ensure that no other instances occur in you and other persons and individuals of note. It would make me feel safer if I could say, you were the only person to ever feel this way. But you are not, and henceforth the information provided in this questioning is invaluable. You will now turn to face the associate in the left of the room, and focus on the screen. You will focus diligently, no less, on the screen. Focus on the images, especially the warm summer’s day outside the entrance hall to station 21B. It seems like the weather was correct today.

You may now relax.

You turn to me, and with a most ardent conviction inform me; “I am a diligent worker. It was a wonderful day today.”