Time Flies

The Lie

Time in the factory ain't reliable. What I mean by that is, five minutes on the clock can be an hour's weight in blood, sweat, and tears. Greenhorns is always complaining about this, which I never did understand. The factory has always been like that, for as long as I . . . I can . . . remember . . . .

What were I saying?

Anyway, there's this new Hoss we just hired, real green, first week on the job. I decided to show him a bit of the ropes, you foller me? After I taught him the proper way to unjam the stirrers, I ain't really too sure how he handled it, so I figured I should take it upon myself to educate the little greenhoss on the makin's of time. One afternoon, I went over to his table where he was busy foldin' and sortin' -- nothing I love more than the sound of a factory full of busy, hard-workin' employees all foldin' and sortin' -- and told him to foller me. His eyes got real huge like big ol' lug nuts. Maybe he thought it was gonna be something like what I showed him with unjammin' the stirrers. Weren't anythin' like that, though. This were regular stuff.

I took him down to the room where it all gets made, all the time. To get there, we had to go down through the three levels of the factory. I have the Masterkey, which I used to let us in through the airlocks. The first airlock hissed open, and we walked through hallways with green potted ferns on every shelf. Some greenhorns have asked what those is good for, but how else are we supposed to hide the chameleons?

We got to the elevator and took it down to the next floor, where I let us through the airlock again. This floor is where we have the scales that measure the blood, sweat and tears. All that comes from the employees, and it seeps down here through pipes, then they weigh it and decide how to pay those hardworkin' Hosses.

The last level is where it gets made. Time. I gave little Hoss a Zoot suit to protect himself, then put on one myself and opened the door. With a puff of gas the airlock hissed open, and there they were. The time flies. They was zippin' around, weaving little green strings behind them. We collect those strings and spin 'em up into balls of fabric and sell them in different increments. It's only one of the ways to make time for things, but it's a good 'un. People call it the string theory of time.

Like I say, we sell them balls in different increments. Say a company comes to us and wants to order a certain amount of time. They can order it in anything from hours to minutes to seconds. Of course, enough hours adds up to days which become weeks and months and years and so-on, but we don't sell it like that. Hours is as high as we go.

The little green Hoss pointed to the pipes juttin' from the ceiling of the fly room.

"What do those do?" he asked me.

"Why Hoss, that's where the waste comes down."

"Waste?"

"Sure. That's what we feed the flies on. Wasted time, wasted lives, wasted dreams." I nudged a pile of somethin' brown and splotchy with my foot. Looked like a deflated soccer ball that'd started to melt. "This right here was made by a parent who didn't go to her daughter's game. What a waste. But the flies love it."

Right as I said it, a whole swarm of the little critters buzzed over and started feastin.'

"So . . . what was all the soap for?" greenhorn asked. "The soap that the gnomes were stirrin'? I mean, stirring."

"Why Hoss, you don't expect people to make use of this time just as it is, do you? It comes outa flies and waste, boy! Naw, all this time has gotta be cleansed. Made new. Time redeemed, if ya speak like that."

Little greenhorn nodded, eyes still huge. What is it with these kids? Anyhow, I took him back up and sent him back to work.

An you know, it hadn't even been a minute since we'd gone down. I guess time don't always fly.

The Truth

This was a fun one to write. Work on Thursday seemed to drag exceptionally slowly, and so I wrote a bit of this in my head over the course of the ten-hour shift.

Factory Mother

The Lie

Mom and I walked through the big front doors of the factory. Well, I guess we didn't technically walk through them. That would be weird, like we were ghosts or something. But we walked inside. Together.

It was really warm in there, and there was this smell . . . a funny kind of smell. A bald man greeted us with a really big smile, which I guess is what happens when you're the daughter and wife of another foreman. I smiled back, although I felt shy, but Mom just nodded.

"Meredith and daughter," she said. "We had an agreement to work today."

The bald man's smile slipped a little, and his lips looked kind of stiff like when people are fake smiling for a picture. You know? But anyway, he guided us past tables to a big machine that kind of smelled like rubber, and showed us how to tug the lever, then press the button, then tug the lever, then press the button. That's how that machine worked, I guess.

He said it took two people - one to tug the lever and press the button and the other to count how many lever-tugs and button-presses the other one made. He gave Mom and notebook and a pencil for the recording. He brought both of us chairs.

"Comfortable, Misses?" he asked. "Alrighty, then. Now, just like I showed you."

I pulled the lever for the first time, and he gave me a smile before wandering away to swear at some workers. People really do swear a lot in factories. Mom put her phone on the chair arm and just sat there, slightly behind and beside me, making a scratch mark in her notebook every time I pulled the lever.

I guess we didn't really fit in. With the swearing, I mean, but also other stuff. Like we were both wearing gray company anniversary shorts and with black leggings, while all the other workers around us had on baggy jeans and uniforms with grease stains, stuff like that. One young man walked by, he kind of jutted out his neck to look at us -- it made me feel weird, for some reason -- and he had long blonde hair in braids, and blue-jeans that sagged down to here! You could see a wide patch of his underwear. It was gray. Mom gave me her look when she saw me noticing.

It didn't matter that we didn't fit in, though. Or that the boy with dreadlocks stared at us in such a funny way. I was there and Mom was there, and she'd come because of my idea. I couldn't believe it when she said yes. All she really thinks about now is money and how tight it is -- which I know I can't blame her for, she's just being responsible, but sometimes I really do with she would talk to me more or not be frowning when I try to tell her things. But that's one reason I had the idea and she agreed, because Daddy mentioned that one of his coworkers had his daughter do the same thing, that they pay you for coming in to help for a little bit. So when I suggested it, Mom really thought it was a good idea.

We worked there for, I don't know, maybe three hours. Then Mom said she was thirsty and it was hot in there and she needed a drink. So we stopped what we were doing -- I wonder if we were technically allowed to? -- and went to find the water fountain.

Well, it turned out there wasn't any water fountain, and when we finally got back, Mom was really frowning. It was that frown. And I felt a little bit bad, and after everything had been going so well! We hadn't actually been talking, but we'd been sitting together for three hours, which was really, really nice.

Then Mom gasped. She was staring at her seat -- especially at the arm of it. Her phone was gone.

"Thief!" she shrieked. It was really loud; everyone could hear. The Foreman froze where he was walking between the lines of machines and cranked his head around to look at us.

"There's a thief here!" Mom said. "Someone stole my phone! Check everyone."

"Now Mrs. Hursey," the bald man started to say, but Mom said "No, check everyone. I am not paying for a new phone."

My face grew warm, not just from the factory heat. He scratched his bald head and looked like he wanted to say something, but finally swore at the workers and called them all to stop what they were doing and stand in a line.

Mom marched up and down in front of them, demanding her phone. The foreman stood behind her, with a look on his face that wasn't sure whether to laugh or be irritated. I stayed back by the machine.

I kept my eyes low, trying not to watch, nudging around the cloths that'd fallen on the floor with the toe of my sneaker. Then I bumped something hard. From out of the pile, I pushed Mom's phone. It must've fallen.

"Mom . . . ." I said.

"Not now, Lisa." She whirled around to glare at me.

"Well . . . ." I said. Then I saw her face, all red and sweating. "It was nothing, anyway."

And I nudged Mom's phone back under the cloths.

The Truth

A mother and daughter did come in to work at the factory today, but none of what I just said happened. I tried for a slightly different style today. I've lately been interested in diverse viewpoints. As before, I haven't had time to edit.

Boss Hoss and the Jammin' Stirrers

The Lie

I stood in the factory workroom, a small cog in the healthy bustle of activity: hissing hydraulics, ringing bells, carts clattering as workers wheeled them to and fro. The whole place smelled like cloth, and oil, and all those other factory-ish smells.

Somewhere off in the building, an buzzer sounded. About seven seconds later, it was followed by a droning voice over the intercom.

"Luke Wildman to the main office, Luke Wildman, please report to the main office." I looked up from the table where I'd been working and headed off with a shrug.

Clint, one of the big bosses, was waiting for me when I arrived. "Hey there, Hoss! Come on, then -- we're gonna teach you how to unjam the soap stirrers!"

I followed him back through the workroom, winding between tables and around a forklift that beeped as it backed up. We eventually reached a wooden paneled of wall, but when I looked for a door handle, he shook his head and pointed to a small cubbyhole door. It was about 2x2 feet large.

"They're in there," Clint said.

I raised my eyebrows as he pulled a thin chain from around his neck, on the end of which swung a huge, brass key. It was all knobby on the end, like a key of old.

I raised my eyebrows even higher when Clint bent down on hands and knees, unlocked the door, and crawled in.

"Come on, Hoss!" his voice echoed back. "Why ya so slow today?"

I crawled through after his disappearing sneakers. They were white, and glowed luminous in the grime of the little service tunnel.

We crawled past pipes and wires. At one point Clint paused as a vent belted steam directly ahead of us. Even from where I crouched, I could feel the heat off it. Finally, the room widened into a slightly larger chamber, though still not large. Five different hose openings led downward from the floor. And twirling around the hoses, there were . . . gnomes. And they were dancing.

Each wore a pair of blue worker's overalls and a red cap low over the ears. One of them had a tiny guitar, made of a matchbox, toothpicks, and some frayed rubber-bands. Another gnome sat at a tiny drum-set, hammering away on bottle-cap symbols. I think I also saw a macaroni saxophone in there, too.

"Hoss, I hate it when the stirrers start jammin'! Here they are, supposed to be mixin' the soap, and instead they're dancin' and merrymakin'! But there's a trick, I'll show ya. When they get like this, ya just gotta show 'em who's boss."

He reached down and plucked the tiny needle off a tiny record swirling on its tiny record-player. The music scratched and then stopped as the musicians stopped playing and the dancing trailed off.

"Hey, what's the big idea!" said the miniature guitarist.

"Now little Hoss, you know you ain't supposed to be jammin' durin' work hours! Who's gonna stir the soap and pour it down them pipes?"

The gnomes hung their heads.

"I ain't mad at'cha," Clint said. "Just so as we understand each other."

He thrust his thumb over his shoulder without looking at me, and I squeezed around in the tight space and crawled back out. Hoss, I mean Clint, followed me. He slapped the dust from his knees.

"So that's watcha do, when the stirrers start jammin'. Think ya can remember that?"

I nodded. "How could I forget?"

He gave me and odd look and turned away. "Now, get yerself back to work, Hoss. What you so slow today for?"

The Truth

The generic factory setting and boss named Clint are both true. The gnomes probably are not. I did have a boss who constantly referred to underlings as "Hoss," though that was at the painting job I worked last summer.

Also, I really don't have time to edit, these days. I apologize for and ask you to please, please forget any errors.

Good Morning, Psychopath

It's a short one, today. Gotta get ready for bed. The morning comes too early.

The Lie

I yawned as I walked to my minivan, windshield glinting in the yellow light spilling from the garage. Five o'clock comes too early. But now that I have a summer job, that's when I have to leave for work.

The car locks all opened with a hard, mechanical click when I twisted the key. I tossed my lunch cooler onto the floor and clambered in.

I sat there for a few moments into the darkness, fiddling with the GPS. First morning on the job. I didn't know the route there very well.

Outside the car, everything was dark. Pitch black. The only light shone from those garage windows; above and around me, the already-black sky was blocked from sight by the thick oak trees overshadowing the driveway. Back here in the woods, there's nothing. Little sound, little light. Only my Aunt and Uncle's solitary house.

Someone knocked on the car window.

I won't pretend I didn't stiffen, or that my eyes didn't flick up. I scare easily. But still, I figured it was my Aunt, maybe come out to say goodbye. She'd already woken early to help me off, Lord love her.

It wasn't. It wasn't my Aunt's face pressing against the glass.

I yelped. I actually fell back in my chair, enough to make the seatbelt jerk, and you would've done the same. I swear you would've. I didn't get a good look at the face before falling, only a black profile and white eyes. But when I looked back up again, it was gone.

A trick of the light? A fantasy of my tired, overly-imaginative mind? Maybe.

Or maybe I'll find out, the next morning I leave for work.

The Truth

Work really does start at that sinfully early hour, and my lovely Aunt really did wake up, but no, there was no face. There can't have been. That had to have been my imagination . . . .

Sorry if there are errors in this one; I don't have time to edit.

Napalm in the Morning

The Lie

I scraped soil over the corn seeds, padding it down and moving on. Earth, moist and freshly churned, squeezed between my toes. Mosquitos buzzed my legs and face.

At least it wasn't too hot, yet. We'd started early in the family garden, and it was barely 8:30. I stepped over to cover dirt over the next batch of seeds. Then something snagged me.

I glanced down, and frowned. A small tendril of weed had somehow wrapped around my ankle. Then I noticed the rest of the garden. All across it, ground was churning and bubbling, tiny stems popping out every which way.

"Goblins!" Uncle Ron bellowed. He seized the weed whip that was jabbed into the earth beside him, then began laying about with the blade. "Defend yourself, Luke!"

"Uh . . . right . . . ."

An especially vigorous weed slapped my knee, thorn-scratches crisscrossing the skin. I yelped and squashed it, then began hacking away at the plants.

"It all began fifty years ago, when Grandpa Wildman contrived a plan to make sweet corn grow itself!" Uncle Ron said.

"Is this really the time for a dramatic backstory?"

"Stick to the script! All went well, until one fateful day when the wind picked up just as he was spraying his living corn potion!"

"'Living corn potion?' For reals?"

Uncle Ron whirled and hacked two plants in half as they snuck up behind him. In the air around us, a cloud of dandelion fluff drifted.

"The potion landed on some weeds, which came alive and strangled the corn! And it has been doing such every five years since, and only perilous battle can beat it back again, reclaiming this patch of earth by the sweat of our brows and the blood of our veins!"

"It's only a garden!" I yelled. Then, from somewhere out of sight, there came a drone. "What's that?"

"Air support!" Uncle Ron yelled. "Take cover!"

I looked up just in time to see a crop duster buzzing our heads, Aunt Sharon at the controls. She wore huge goggles and a pilot's jacket, with a scarf flapping in the wind.

"Napalm!" Aunt Sharon screamed. She laughed like a madwoman, then yanked a lever. The plane's bottom opened up; a glinting, churning liquid distorted the sky for a moment. Then it fell.

Uncle Ron grabbed me and dove, clearing the garden just in time. The weeds shriveled and died, curling and burrowing back into the sand. Uncle Ron looked up and chuckled. "Well, that'll beat them back another year! I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

The Truth

Yes, we gardened this morning. No, the weeds did not turn sentient (though at times it seems that way), and Aunt Sharon did not release scalding napalm upon them. Really, do I actually need to clarify these things? By the way, I can't claim credit for the brilliant last line. You probably know this, but it comes from a well-known Vietnam movie, Apocalypse Now.

Off-Road Grandfather

The Lie

Today I visited my grandparents in their retirement community. It was raining heavily when I got there, and no one was outside except a couple of twenty-something landscapers digging up a latrine. I hurried in, hunched over the box of groceries my Aunt Sharon sent with me.

Grandma, Grandpa and I chatted for a few hours, he in his big armchair next to the window, watching the gray rain that slowly cleared away as the sun peaked through. The sky remained overcast, but the world slowly dried.

Grandpa and I went for a stroll, eventually. More of a roll -- he was in his motorized chair, and I walked alongside. We navigated the air-conditioned corridors, nodding greetings to old friends and eventually coming towards the end of a residential hallway. I expected Grandpa to stop and spin around. I'm telling you, he can turn that chair like a ballerina twirling in place. It's better than an amusement park ride. But instead of using those impressive one-point turn skills, Grandpa leaned the control stick all the way forward and headed straight for the exit, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

We were free.

He took it slow, at first. We cruised at moderate speed in a semi-circle around the building, coming at last to a division in the path -- one sidewalk continued on a nice, even slope, and the other zig-zagged its way down a steep hill, running along the edge of a drop-off. Don't ask me why they have frickin' Rainbow-Road at my grandparents retirement community.

Grandpa, of course, being the mild, sensible old fellow that he is, took the zig-zagging route.

He nudged his chair forward carefully, me chewing my lip and glancing frequently at the perilous plummet to our left. I finally relax when he seemed content to merely amble, and that's when he did it. He floored the wheelchair.

You'd be surprised at how fast those things can go. Not that fast -- I kept up at a jog -- but the fact that I had to jog should tell you something. He gathered speed as we descended, then banked sharply left when we hit bottom. The chair swayed precariously. My grandpa cackled like a speed-demon, kicking it up a gear and pushing it full-throttle, wheels spinning and little engine whirring.

"Grandpa . . . ." I tried, but he wasn't listening.

A huge puddle suddenly spread out before us, flat and glinting, and he charged through it, mud swirling in his wake. Directly ahead were the two latrine-diggers. One of them was just wiping his brow and straightening up -- and that's when he saw the off-road wheelchair bearing down on him, mad-eyed racer at the controls.

They dove out of the way.

We finally pulled back up to the front of the retirement community, and rolled in. Grandma was wiping a cup with a drying towel when we reached the apartment, standing on tiptoe to put it away.

"Did you boys have a nice walk?"

"Well I dunno, Betty," Grandpa said. "I think maybe this guy goes too fast for me."

I swear he winked.

My Grandpa is cooler than your Grandpa

The Truth

Everything is true up till grandpa floored the wheelchair, although he did seem to egg in on at points. It's also true that their retirement community has the Rainbow-Road of all sidewalks.

Nondisclosure Enclosure

The Lie

I finally found a summer job. This morning was orientation, mostly a time to sign some papers and learn about the work I'll be doing. I pulled into the parking lot about 7:50, wheels crunching on gravel, then waited ten minutes and went in. The receptionist called down the hall, and a woman in colorful clothes toddled out, holding a Chinese-style fan. She kept flicking it open and batting it at herself while we walked.

She guided me to a conference room at the end of the hall and told me to take a seat, and to please wait a few minutes while someone else arrived. Then she left. She shut the door behind her.

I looked around. It was a standard workplace meeting room. A kamikaze housefly bopped repeatedly against a fluorescent bulb, the scratched table was empty except for a landline telephone, rigged up for conference calls. It was a large room with two doors: the one I'd entered through and a second one.

The second door opened.

The strangest, most wrinkled little figure I've ever seen scampered in on all fours, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase on the thin carpet. He whimpered -- an oddly high-pitched sound -- and dove under the table. I shoved my chair back, leaning down to stare, but then jerked upright a moment later as the door banged back again against the wall.

Two men rushed in, cursing. They were wearing white hazmat-suits with full plastic visors. One of the men carried what looked like a heavy-duty butterfly net; the other had a kennel-like contraption, and he opened it and set it up in the doorway. Then he took out a retractable cane, like a blind man's cane, and started prodding under the table.

The wrinkled little man -- or whatever he was -- dove straight for my chair. I drew my legs up and hugged my knees. He wrapped his arms around one of the chair legs and curled around it, whimpering something awful.

"Come on, Mowgli," one of the hazmat men said. "You know you have to come back."

The one with the butterfly net unzipped a pocket in the arm of his suit, and held out a handful of food. It looked brown and squishy. I know I recognized the smell, but couldn't quite place it. 'Mowgli' sniffed the air and slowly uncurled from my chair leg, then moved closer to the men, half-circling them. He looked so scared.

Finally, he stuck his nose into the mushy substance in the man's hand, and the man screamed "Gotcha!" and whipped the butterfly net over Mowgli's head. I confess, by this time I was kind of rooting for the poor guy. Mowgli struggled in the net, but the other guy prodded him with the cane, and finally they got him into the kennel and locked it up. Butterfly-hazmat dude gave me a little salute as they carried it out of the room. Mowgli was still whimpering.

A few minutes later, the woman with the Chinese fan returned. She acted like nothing had happened. Did she know?

"Shall we get started?" she asked. "First thing, we have some nondisclosure agreements for you to sign . . . ."

The Truth

Job orientation was today. The business group I'm working for isn't nearly as weird as the company I just lied about, unfortunately.

The only true parts come up until the second door opens. I think I stole part of this idea from a prank show I once saw. A girl had been set up with a fake job as a secretary in a sketchy doctor's office, and an actor came in pretending to be an embittered former patient. He had a large kennel-like box with him. The secretary heard him accusing the doctor of botching a surgery on his brother, then, to get vengeance, he "stabbed" the doctor with a syringe and opened up the box, setting free the dwarf-actor who was playing his brother. The dwarf scampered around the room on all fours, attacking the doctor before rushing at the terrified secretary.

Why does anyone watch those prank shows? Oh, that's why.