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rainbowfic2015-03-28 08:06 pm
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-03-28 08:06 pm
Entry tags:
Clean Again 1
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Characters: Milo, Kit makes a brief appearance.
Colors: Clean Again 1 (Classic Clean)
Word Count: 1728
Rating: PG (?)
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Milo winds down after a long day on the job.
Note: Any sort of commentary fine by me!
Midnight Shift
I feel like I’ve been in here since time began.
When you’re working double shifts, you can’t leave the building. Out there, in the dark, you wouldn’t even get to the shuttle bus before your fingertips were black and ready to decay. So the whole place is on lockdown until three hours after sunrise. When the cold is only just enough to mist your breath and set your ribs rattling. Your fingertips turn white and survive. It’s just a few steps to the side from what we were built to withstand.
In here, under the lights, you can’t even get through a week before your brain feels grey and ready to rot. You’re locked in, you keep your head down, you work. You get used to the grit in your teeth. And before you know it, the building is your whole world. Every sound echoes off the concrete floors and makes the place seem vast and hollow. You get the idea that you could open the door and see nothing but white; like someone forgot to draw in the rest of the universe. The factory is all that is. At least, for now, you have to make yourself believe this. If you tell yourself there’s nothing to miss, you can endure.
They don’t let anyone do this for more than a week straight. The official explanation is that the plant ain’t a damn hostel. If you’re homeless, you can damn well be homeless on your own time. And a few of us are. Hell, it’s how I started out when I first got hired. Anyway, that’s just what they tell you, or at least imply. If I had any money to screw around with, I’d bet a good chunk of it that we’re not allowed because a person or three went crazy way back in the day. They told themselves that this would be their world and did it just a little too well. Then their brains suffocated and caved in on themselves and broke.
I tell myself it’s worth it. I flip switches and run the crusher and tell myself it’s worth it. I change stations and press buttons and run the sieves and tell myself it’s worth it. I stand in place for another six hours, I tell myself it’s worth it. I crack my back, I pop my hips, I lock my knees, I tell myself it’s worth it. I have dirt in my mouth, and metal in my lungs, and it’s worth it. I’ve been shut up in here for days, losing all sense of time and space, but it will be worth it. Where I’m going, I’ll need money. Since I’m not sure where I’ll end up, I’ll need it even more. Back in the outside world, there are tickets to buy. Out on Earth, I’ll be unemployed. The only trick to it is patience. I’m borrowing against the here and now to secure the future. That’s all.
It did occur to me that, with the state I’ve been in, I might just be ruining myself. That I might pay my way to another life and get there sick and aching. Too tired to even make anything out of it. Bleeding. But, I’m not worried. It would only be a real problem if I still cared about me. And I don’t see much point in that now. As far as I’m concerned, I was dead the first time I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe and spent the next ten minutes hemorrhaging over the sink. This is just the part where I tie up my loose ends. I’m a workhorse; I’m a vehicle. I will deliver my brother to Earth, and then my part is over. I’m a foregone conclusion. This is all I’m good for anymore. My usefulness has outlived me.
I picture myself as a hollow vessel. I tell myself it’s worth it.
They let me stop working. Somewhere, in a place I can no longer access, it’s night. The sky might be hazy with dust, or there might be billions of stars outside my window. Billions of stars under glass, the only way I’ve ever known them. I have no way of knowing. Here, the lights shine down from the high ceiling, their glow imitating no particular time of day. They never go out. I’m nowhere and no-when.
Someone forgot to draw in the rest of the universe.
I touch my grimy hair and think, shower. I go to the showers, I pick a door, I strip. I turn on the water and almost forget what I was doing, I let it beat against me. I watch all the black and grey rinse off and run down the floor drain. I remember there might have been a time when the idea of being covered in asteroid dust would have been amazing to me, but I can’t bring back the feeling. Today, I’m just dirty. I wash my hair, it stays blue. I hack something up and spit on the floor. Not red this time. A dark color that makes me think of oil spots and freshly-sharpened pencils. I tell myself that there are asteroids in my lungs. Nothing happens. It’s hard to marvel at something tearing you apart. It’s hard to marvel at anything when you can feel yourself dying. That was the part I really hadn’t seen coming.
I change back in to the same dirty clothes. I get my coat and my phone from my locker. I get some paper towels from the bathroom. In the bathroom, I think, that if I was the only thing I had to be responsible for, now might be a good time to drown myself in the toilet. But, there are things that depend on my continued existence. Also, I’m not sure who the hell sat on that thing last. I go to the breakroom, not the Great Beyond. I eat a stale protein bar from the vending machine. I make tomorrow’s coffee. I get ready for bed.
If a bed is what you want to call it. The breakroom has a wall lined with these sleeping compartments for the double-shifters. A hatch to a tube with a narrow mattress inside. Think about a beehive. Think about a morgue. Think about soundproofing, and closing that little door behind you. Think about small, dim lights. Think about the darkness when you switch them off.
Think about being alone.
Same as the rest of the building, the compartment starts feeling like it has nothing outside it. I’m drifting in a space capsule. I’m lying in my own coffin. I think, you’d better get used to this.
I take out my phone, and picture myself throwing out a line to everything else.
“Kit… Hi.”
“Hey, Milo!”
I keep my ears open to any background noise the receiver might catch. My brother. My home. I may be locked up in a pocket dimension, but I still want to know what’s going on. I can’t hear anything. I guess he’ll just have to tell me.
“You have a good day today? Keep busy?”
“Yeah. I read some of those books you left out.”
“Oh yeah? Anything good?”
“I liked that one history one. I wish we had history. Mars is boring.”
“…Hey, Mars has history!”
“Well, yeah, but not like, Big History. We never had a war or a king or anything.”
“Ah. Yeah, I get that. Anything else?”
“I found a free game and played it on your computer for a while.”
“Any good?”
“Pretty good!”
“Well, then you’re going to have to let me play it when I get back! Anyway, did you have a decent dinner?”
“Yeah. I went to one of the downstairs kitchens, and Ms. Cassini invited me to eat with her and her kids, so I did that.”
I don’t think I use that particular kitchen, and have no idea who this is.
“Oh yeah? What’d she make.”
“Spaghetti.”
“Well, sounds like you’re eating better than usual!”
“I guess so. She makes it weird, though.”
There was a short stretch when neither of us said anything.
“…It’s just for two more nights, okay?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I miss you.”
I really do. In my little box, alone, I keep the tense pulling in my throat inaudible. I tell myself that, if I remember, I can cry later.
“I miss you too.”
“Well, like I said… Anyway, you getting ready for bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
More silence.
“’Night, Milo.”
“Yeah. Goodnight. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Kit hangs up first. I stick my phone in my coat pocket, pull my coat over myself, and try my best to fit all of me under it. I untether my tired mind from my body and drift away. I don’t remember to cry.
I wake up… (Pause to glance at my phone.) …Four hours later. I’m all choked up with mineral slurry. I picture it reconstituted, an asteroid resting on my sternum. Lying in my silver drawer, I will my dead lungs to move. This is why I have the paper towels. I didn’t think of it the first day and had to use my shirt. Had to spend half an hour locked in the bathroom, cold-soaking it in the sink. This way, all I have to do is prop myself up and sputter and spit until the air gets moving again. I feel the sharp-edged metal filings scraping out my insides. I cross my mental fingers and wait. Please please please let this clot. Oh, shit. I’m not finished yet. Please… It already looks like too much. My head is already spinning. And I’ve heard that blood always spreads out and looks worse than it is, but that probably stops mattering when it’s every night. It’s like why I never buy painkillers from the machine in the bathroom: after a while, it all adds up. Like how a leaky sink costs you at the end of the month. I breathe. I leak. I sit up.
I’m cold and wet and rank. I bled through the towels and onto my hands. I think, shower.
I go to the showers, I pick a door, I strip. I turn on the water and almost forget what I was doing, I let it beat against me.
I tell myself it’s worth it.
starphotographsStory: Universe B
Characters: Milo, Kit makes a brief appearance.
Colors: Clean Again 1 (Classic Clean)
Word Count: 1728
Rating: PG (?)
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Milo winds down after a long day on the job.
Note: Any sort of commentary fine by me!
I feel like I’ve been in here since time began.
When you’re working double shifts, you can’t leave the building. Out there, in the dark, you wouldn’t even get to the shuttle bus before your fingertips were black and ready to decay. So the whole place is on lockdown until three hours after sunrise. When the cold is only just enough to mist your breath and set your ribs rattling. Your fingertips turn white and survive. It’s just a few steps to the side from what we were built to withstand.
In here, under the lights, you can’t even get through a week before your brain feels grey and ready to rot. You’re locked in, you keep your head down, you work. You get used to the grit in your teeth. And before you know it, the building is your whole world. Every sound echoes off the concrete floors and makes the place seem vast and hollow. You get the idea that you could open the door and see nothing but white; like someone forgot to draw in the rest of the universe. The factory is all that is. At least, for now, you have to make yourself believe this. If you tell yourself there’s nothing to miss, you can endure.
They don’t let anyone do this for more than a week straight. The official explanation is that the plant ain’t a damn hostel. If you’re homeless, you can damn well be homeless on your own time. And a few of us are. Hell, it’s how I started out when I first got hired. Anyway, that’s just what they tell you, or at least imply. If I had any money to screw around with, I’d bet a good chunk of it that we’re not allowed because a person or three went crazy way back in the day. They told themselves that this would be their world and did it just a little too well. Then their brains suffocated and caved in on themselves and broke.
I tell myself it’s worth it. I flip switches and run the crusher and tell myself it’s worth it. I change stations and press buttons and run the sieves and tell myself it’s worth it. I stand in place for another six hours, I tell myself it’s worth it. I crack my back, I pop my hips, I lock my knees, I tell myself it’s worth it. I have dirt in my mouth, and metal in my lungs, and it’s worth it. I’ve been shut up in here for days, losing all sense of time and space, but it will be worth it. Where I’m going, I’ll need money. Since I’m not sure where I’ll end up, I’ll need it even more. Back in the outside world, there are tickets to buy. Out on Earth, I’ll be unemployed. The only trick to it is patience. I’m borrowing against the here and now to secure the future. That’s all.
It did occur to me that, with the state I’ve been in, I might just be ruining myself. That I might pay my way to another life and get there sick and aching. Too tired to even make anything out of it. Bleeding. But, I’m not worried. It would only be a real problem if I still cared about me. And I don’t see much point in that now. As far as I’m concerned, I was dead the first time I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe and spent the next ten minutes hemorrhaging over the sink. This is just the part where I tie up my loose ends. I’m a workhorse; I’m a vehicle. I will deliver my brother to Earth, and then my part is over. I’m a foregone conclusion. This is all I’m good for anymore. My usefulness has outlived me.
I picture myself as a hollow vessel. I tell myself it’s worth it.
They let me stop working. Somewhere, in a place I can no longer access, it’s night. The sky might be hazy with dust, or there might be billions of stars outside my window. Billions of stars under glass, the only way I’ve ever known them. I have no way of knowing. Here, the lights shine down from the high ceiling, their glow imitating no particular time of day. They never go out. I’m nowhere and no-when.
Someone forgot to draw in the rest of the universe.
I touch my grimy hair and think, shower. I go to the showers, I pick a door, I strip. I turn on the water and almost forget what I was doing, I let it beat against me. I watch all the black and grey rinse off and run down the floor drain. I remember there might have been a time when the idea of being covered in asteroid dust would have been amazing to me, but I can’t bring back the feeling. Today, I’m just dirty. I wash my hair, it stays blue. I hack something up and spit on the floor. Not red this time. A dark color that makes me think of oil spots and freshly-sharpened pencils. I tell myself that there are asteroids in my lungs. Nothing happens. It’s hard to marvel at something tearing you apart. It’s hard to marvel at anything when you can feel yourself dying. That was the part I really hadn’t seen coming.
I change back in to the same dirty clothes. I get my coat and my phone from my locker. I get some paper towels from the bathroom. In the bathroom, I think, that if I was the only thing I had to be responsible for, now might be a good time to drown myself in the toilet. But, there are things that depend on my continued existence. Also, I’m not sure who the hell sat on that thing last. I go to the breakroom, not the Great Beyond. I eat a stale protein bar from the vending machine. I make tomorrow’s coffee. I get ready for bed.
If a bed is what you want to call it. The breakroom has a wall lined with these sleeping compartments for the double-shifters. A hatch to a tube with a narrow mattress inside. Think about a beehive. Think about a morgue. Think about soundproofing, and closing that little door behind you. Think about small, dim lights. Think about the darkness when you switch them off.
Think about being alone.
Same as the rest of the building, the compartment starts feeling like it has nothing outside it. I’m drifting in a space capsule. I’m lying in my own coffin. I think, you’d better get used to this.
I take out my phone, and picture myself throwing out a line to everything else.
“Kit… Hi.”
“Hey, Milo!”
I keep my ears open to any background noise the receiver might catch. My brother. My home. I may be locked up in a pocket dimension, but I still want to know what’s going on. I can’t hear anything. I guess he’ll just have to tell me.
“You have a good day today? Keep busy?”
“Yeah. I read some of those books you left out.”
“Oh yeah? Anything good?”
“I liked that one history one. I wish we had history. Mars is boring.”
“…Hey, Mars has history!”
“Well, yeah, but not like, Big History. We never had a war or a king or anything.”
“Ah. Yeah, I get that. Anything else?”
“I found a free game and played it on your computer for a while.”
“Any good?”
“Pretty good!”
“Well, then you’re going to have to let me play it when I get back! Anyway, did you have a decent dinner?”
“Yeah. I went to one of the downstairs kitchens, and Ms. Cassini invited me to eat with her and her kids, so I did that.”
I don’t think I use that particular kitchen, and have no idea who this is.
“Oh yeah? What’d she make.”
“Spaghetti.”
“Well, sounds like you’re eating better than usual!”
“I guess so. She makes it weird, though.”
There was a short stretch when neither of us said anything.
“…It’s just for two more nights, okay?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I miss you.”
I really do. In my little box, alone, I keep the tense pulling in my throat inaudible. I tell myself that, if I remember, I can cry later.
“I miss you too.”
“Well, like I said… Anyway, you getting ready for bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
More silence.
“’Night, Milo.”
“Yeah. Goodnight. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Kit hangs up first. I stick my phone in my coat pocket, pull my coat over myself, and try my best to fit all of me under it. I untether my tired mind from my body and drift away. I don’t remember to cry.
I wake up… (Pause to glance at my phone.) …Four hours later. I’m all choked up with mineral slurry. I picture it reconstituted, an asteroid resting on my sternum. Lying in my silver drawer, I will my dead lungs to move. This is why I have the paper towels. I didn’t think of it the first day and had to use my shirt. Had to spend half an hour locked in the bathroom, cold-soaking it in the sink. This way, all I have to do is prop myself up and sputter and spit until the air gets moving again. I feel the sharp-edged metal filings scraping out my insides. I cross my mental fingers and wait. Please please please let this clot. Oh, shit. I’m not finished yet. Please… It already looks like too much. My head is already spinning. And I’ve heard that blood always spreads out and looks worse than it is, but that probably stops mattering when it’s every night. It’s like why I never buy painkillers from the machine in the bathroom: after a while, it all adds up. Like how a leaky sink costs you at the end of the month. I breathe. I leak. I sit up.
I’m cold and wet and rank. I bled through the towels and onto my hands. I think, shower.
I go to the showers, I pick a door, I strip. I turn on the water and almost forget what I was doing, I let it beat against me.
I tell myself it’s worth it.
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Thanks for reading! :D
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Thanks for reading, and I really dig your icon! <3
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Thanks again!
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And yeah, I feel like he's the most "conventionally" sympathetic out of all the characters I'm comfortable first-personing for. I'm happy that I managed to convey it!
Thanks for reading! :)
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Thanks for reading!
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And thanks a lot!
(Sorry for lateness, ack!)