Factory Stories, Part 1 remade

Albert, part 1.


The work he had to do wasn't really something he could actually call "work" in the real sense of the word. Not that he minded, it certainly was beating the hell out of flipping burgers at a night grill stand like he had done for his last summer holiday. Now, three weeks into his employment term, he found himself oddly at ease with the surroundings - the giant whirring hangar he worked in, the grayness of the surroundings, the tired faces - well, he was one of them now, so he couldn't really say he stood out of the crowd. Sure, there were people that acted differently - like the fellow that always showed up wearing black clothes and a sarcastic smile on his face - Albert could swear he heard laughter from that particular part of the building. The guy made him laugh a few times as well, throwing around several dry sarcastic comments. Then again. Albert liked the silence. All they had to do was pack the ready radios, and packing was what he did. The people that populated his cubicle were nice, quiet people that seemed to share a few common interests but never really talked about them a great deal - which was good, too, as he really couldn't care for what they did. Or, he couldn't really say he couldn't care at all, rather, he preferred to simply work without getting any kinds of attachments formed. To Albert, working at the factory was merely a way to earn his money, not a visit to a concert hall or a beach - he didn't have to enjoy it, and the fact that he didn't hate it was a great bonus.

"Number sixteen-oh-one!" Albert snapped out of his thoughts, finishing the packing of a yet another box. "Yes?"
"You get to move to another part of the factory. Sorry, necessary measures, really - the management thinks you need to learn some other things around"

Albert nodded, getting up from his seat. Learning new things, now that was something he didn't enjoy. What was this about? He fulfilled the daily quota every day, even did extra sometimes, there were rarely any complaints about his packing, and he even received some faint praise from the colleagues. So why now? And where? And what? He sighed quietly as he followed the man that came after him - another typical factory employee. Sometimes they looked like twins, and this was one of those times. Lab coats, those odd hats some wore... Ugh, he would have to wear one of those too? Seemed so - the man, babbling on, passed him a light plastic hat and showed him a whole shelf filled with more of such. Albert nodded politely, pretending to listen, as he put the hat on. At least they weren't re- useable. He'd hate it if they were. Someone else's hair in his hat, what next, lice?

While he inwardly cursed, they crossed another magnificent grey concrete hall and entered a maze of cubicles. "You'll be putting these things together now, sixteen-oh-one. The people around will show you how to do it, it's really nothing difficult. Well, good luck at the new place!" The man walked away, leaving Albert in front of an enterance to one of the cubicles. Albert sighed and hesitantly stepped inside, instantly wishing he hadn't. The inhabitants, oh god. The inhabitants reminded him of the clients he used to have at the burger joint - two haggardly, foul-smelling men of unknown age or origin and a woman that could have easily been used to sweep chimneys - both for the reasons of her terrible, sickly, unnatural thinness and for what seemed to be unremovable stains on her face. Then again, she might have simply liked to drink a tad too much. The jolly company waved to Albert, the woman instinctively fixing the plastic hat on her head. "I hope I wouldn't have to work here too long", Albert thought.

It only took him a few hours to learn more about his new neighbours than he's ever known of his old ones. He couldn't quite say he liked what he'd have learned, either, though most of the things he'd now heard from his "comrades" merely confirmed his worst suspicions. In other words, they were drunkards of the worst sort - not quite something he'd personally enjoyed. In fact, drunkards and addicts were the facts that he had violently tried to hide about his family.

Well, not all his family, of course. His brother, mostly, the drug addict that kept getting busted at minor theft attempts yet always managed to get money for another dose from somewhere. Albert didn't quite think he wanted to know how exactly his brother, the most inept and clumsy thief in history, was earning his money. Then there was the father, a quiet drunkard with endless sorrow in his eyes, the sort that will point out all the troubles that plague the world but never get off his arse to stop spending his wife's salary and actually work. Oh, he had reasons, of course, thousands of them. Albert wondered how his mother was putting up with the old git. He moved out of the mutual family home as soon as he could, though, so it was really no trouble of his any longer - mother didn't want to move out and leave the useless waste of flesh that were the other males of his family behind - and he didn't feel inclined to try to persuade her otherwise. Still, having such characters in his past was one thing, sharing the same breathing space with three of them at work, eight hours each day was a different matter completely. Their breath, their faces, their voices... He could barely contain his disgust. That, and the subjects they picked, things that sometimes made his skin crawl. Sure, the discussions of the latest drunken party were still manageable, as well as comparing of one sort of cheap booze against another, but then, the woman would open her mouth. The horrible, disgusting, revolting woman. Sometimes, he wished he could hit her with something heavy, or stab her with something sharp, or just beat her face to a pulp - well, judging by her face, someone with less self-control than himself had already done it, and perhaps more than once. Albert mentally applauded to whoever it was that did it, wishing he'd have been there to watch. But all that aside... Why? How? How could this woman find people to mate with so she could tell stories of it the next day? Did she pay them? Was there someone that desperate? Or that drunk? Albert wasn't sure there was enough alcohol one could consume before the standards would drop that low. She ranted on and on, though, describing everything down to every detail, and the men seemed to at least approve what they were hearing. The first and only feeble attempt by Albert to make the woman stop was interrupted by them immediately, he was called a chauvinist and an ass as well as a number of other things, and for at least a week, the dirty trio would occasionally make up a crude joke about him.

He even tried to talk about it to their foreman - to no use. The foreman of this particular spot of hell seemed to be a hard-headed idiot that was beating his head against a brick wall daily in order not to lose his admirable qualities. All Albert got out of the discussion was that trying to "talk behind your comrades' backs" was bad, and that he should "try to get used to them". Well, that wasn't true. He also got the foreman to send him and the other three to a bar, with several free drinks on him. Him being Albert, of course, for being such an ass to his "friends" and trying to deteriorate the workplace morale. What morale? A rotting corpse had more morale than Albert's damned cubicle. As he stepped outside the foreman's office, Albert felt blood rushing to his face. How dare he tell him such filth? He had the nerve to threaten to fire him with a letter of warning to any other company he was ever to join as a disruptor and anarchist if he didn't follow the order of taking those three to a bar. What the hell was wrong with that man, anyway? People usually preferred it when their employees did not drink, rather than have that in reverse. Albert clenched his jaw. Fine, he would take them to drink. And he would sit quietly for another week. But then, he'd definitely be out of this hole, away from drunks, idiots and harlots. He closed his eyes then, just for a moment.

And just in that moment, he must have finally snapped, as when he opened them, he saw a squirrel. A rather large squirrel with a fat tail. Just sitting in the middle of the hall, staring at him square in the eyes. He blinked several times, wondering if the squirrel would just go away. But it just didn't, rather, it moved a bit closer, almost to within his reach now, squeaking at him quietly. Albert instinctively reached for his pocket, wondering if it contained any food he could offer to the little critter. But just as he reached for the pocket, taking his eyes off the squirrel, it vanished. Albert sighed and shook his head. Perhaps that idea of having the drinks wasn't so bad after all, what with seeing squirrels in the middle of a bloody factory.

...Or perhaps it wasn't. The place the drunks picked was full of derelict charm, dirty, noisy and smelly - and naturally, filled with more of the type that Albert wanted to avoid. He began to wonder if such bars were left around to make people to appreciate the averageness of other places, or whether they actually were breeding places for their customers. Then he recalled the daily talks of the woman and shuddered. Of course it was. He sighed and ordered the drinks, deciding to empty a few quickly to slightly dullen the perception.

Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea. Or maybe it was! He'd forgotten how little it took for him to get drunk and lose his stupid attitudes towards everyone and everything. The workmates didn't look at all as bad as he'd made them look to himself before, just some slightly less fortunate folk that ended up on the wrong side of the tracks and couldn't help get across, being tossed back to their place by the likes of him. How could he be so stuck-up? Albert was briefly shocked with himself, but another drink quickly solved that, leaving him to joyfully perform at the karaoke machine. His new friends looked at him approvingly, occasionally, even seeming to try to slow him down, but he couldn't be stopped, not by them, not by anyone. He had money to burn, for why have money if it can't be burned? He seemed to remember heading off to another bar with his friends, though then again, he might have been wrong. To be quite honest, now that he just woke up to the ringing of alarm clock and aching of the head, he wasn't quite sure what had happened last night. Didn't seem too awful, though, going to a bar with those three. They sure knew how to have fun. Such were Albert's thoughts as he gathered himself for work.

His thoughts were still a mess when he entered the factory and headed towards his cubicle. Just at the door of it, he stopped, trying to gather his slightly crumbling mind and thinking of what to say to the neighbours, when he suddenly heard their voices from the inside. They were exceptionally early today, all of them. And they seemed to speak of him - a subject he could listen in on for a few moments - and so he stayed. And as he listened on, his eyes grew wider and wider in horror and disgust, mind conjuring images from its depths, and those were not happy images. Well, not now that he was sober. That woman, that dirty, terrible, horrible woman, how could she? How could he? He couldn't have been that drunk! No, this was a mistake, a lie, slander, that's what it was! All lies, and she was spreading them behind his back!

As the thoughts and blood filled Albert's head, his vision dimmed for a moment, his head strangely like a balloon, empty and light. Slowly, a smile instilled itself on his lips, a smile that didn't apply to his eyes in the least. He tore himself away from where he stood and entered the cubicle, quietly greeting everyone and leaning downwards to pick up the materials for the upcoming day. The group seemed to pay little heed of him - even the woman, who continued her ugly storytelling, likely thinking he would approve or enjoy it. Well, silly her.

With that thought, Albert picked up a radio cover and took a swift leap towards the woman. She stared at him, startled, words about to drop off her tongue, as he swung the cover in the air briefly and applied it to her face. Something inside him screeched, trying to stop him, but either it didn't try hard enough, or he was a bit too absorbed in his new, and rather pleasant occupation. Either way, his hands kept moving, blows falling to anything he'd meet in his way. Suddenly, something hit him from behind. It didn't feel like much, but now, his legs could no longer support him, the body won't listen, or even feel. Faced with no other choice, he fell to the ground - facing the monster of a woman just in front of him. He didn't quite know what made him feel so sure of it, but as he looked at her glassy eyes, it dawned upon him that the woman would never again open that stupid dirty mouth. With that, he smiled and closed his eyes.


Commentary: For coherence's sake.
Commentary 2: Same reasons, ending modified.