3. Tufty

BANG. BANG. BANG. who’d have thought it 5 years, 5 bloody years of my life being taught how to be a f****ng box packer for the Establishment Industries- as if there are any others. Don’t get me wrong there are lots of ins and outs of it how to pick it up, how to erect the box , how to layer the contents in it, how to close it, how to stick it shut with tape the first stretch has to be vertical the next horizontal – it makes it harder for people to tamper with it- not that they wouldn’t notice -they’d notice a grain of dirt, how to pick it up, how to keep the pace of the conveyor belt. Your  suppose to do 2 boxes a minuet = 1 every 30 seconds, after the first few your fingers and back get use to the aching but you never get use to the tiredness...

The Establishment sewers were just as cold, dank and shit as anything else the Establishment had made. They were always an escape route- I guess the fuckers thought we were all too thick to use them. That and the pong that followed you mostly gave you away. That's why we all showered if you smelt bad you'd be executed they either thought you were unclean and forced you to wash in big pools of cold chemically treated water in some cases holding people down so long they'd drown. Or they’d laser you on sight the second choice wasn't so bad it didn’t make your whole body sting and turn your skin red raw for days on end. So despite the risk I had tried it...

I was lucky in a way that my way to freedom wasn't exactly- pitch black. Maybe their sh*t really was cleaner than most, but the river of rank, slushy water- would flash a dazzling white every now and then as I walked down the crumbling concrete bank. The water hissed with these white flashes, and steam leaped up from the crumbling sides of the concrete, melting my nostrils with an acidic whiff of sh*t. It wasn't that their sh*t was cleaner than most, it was so bright white it illuminated the dark in clumpy streaks of shit shaped parcels- the only natural form the Establishment patrollers' had kept. I plundered along my hand against the damp dripping wall feeling for the old metallic plate left over from the original sewers. Even the rats didn't live by the water; they knew the consequences all to well. My fingers sizzled as they hit the water; whatever it was in their shit was strong enough to dissolve your flesh to the bone. And although my fingers felt blistered and almost numb from the clean chemical I pushed on. My luck ended on a cross section of the sewer somewhere between an Establishment tower block and the patrollers’ head quarters- my halfway point. I don't know what kind of hell sh**ting they'd been doing, but there was a sudden whoosh of gushing liquid, the sewers lit up like an explosion, making me jump as it blinded my eyes, and melted my nostril hairs with its acidic drench. The eroding concrete broke beneath my foot and too close to the edge my foot pop-sizzled in. The acidic roar melted my clothes as the acid fumes chocked me, and began to take on more of a fleshy smell as my foot burned inside the liquid. I pulled myself up with the bent distorted shape of the metallic marker. And foot throbbing rounded the corner. The light faded and I hobbled into the dark, not knowing just how far down the acid had gone for that I would have to wait for the patrol filled city, and if they caught me there'd be no escape, despite the pain I knew one thing- the wound would be clean.

 

( Extract from: we Only Defy The Laws Of Gravity When We Have Too, chapter 3)