Payday

The jittery hand of the odometer trembled in the no-man's land between a half and three-quarters of the circular gauge, and my arms felt like lead. It weren't so long ago that I could turn the crank fast enough to appease the odometer's hand into going all the way to the right, into a little red region on the dial there. Now, getting it to where it danced now caused rivers of sweat to drip off my shirt and flow like little brooks down into the gutters installed for that very purpose in the floor.

Slowly and surely, the hand crawled to the right as I poured my remaining strength into the crank. The black mark on the dial, signifying the next factor of speed, now disappeared occasionaly under the indecisive gauge hand. So close-- just a little more--

But it was not to be. The plant filled with surprised shouts, small pieces of glass falling from the ceiling, and metallic screeching from somewhere in the distance as yet another wave of tremors shook the building. Blown-out lightbulbs hung underneath the ceiling, sending an occasional shower of sparks onto the long crankshaft engines beneath, and onto the hundreds of others like myself. The crackling lasted only long enough to illuminate my gauge and show a horrifying picture: the odometer waited in sadistic glee, as if to make sure it had my rapt attention, before slowly sinking all the way back down to the left.

"Again?" I said to the machine in front of me. "Are you really doing this to me again? Christ. Where are the drink-maids when you need them most?"

"The hell with it," I heard Jonah 59 next to me. He abandoned the crank and sagely observed the endless rows of others shrugging off the falling debris and getting back to work as the emergency lights kicked in. "It's not like much is expected from us, anyway. I say - why go against expectations? Work is work, see."

"On one hand, it's not like they're gonna fire us," I agreed. "But on the other, did you know that work gets significantly less boring when you actually work and not just sit there in boredom?"

"Whatever," he flicked his wrist dismissively. "There's not enough time to get bored, just look at the clock. Looks like you've had just about enough, too," he remarked, nodding at the gauge. "I'm gonna go have a breather at the lounge. You wanna come along?"

"Sure," I said. "Be right there." Jonah nodded and headed off. I sighed at the gauge, and followed him.

If you looked at it real close, the plant wasn't flat and infinite in every direction -- if you defocus your eyes and not really look anywhere in particular, you could definitely see the curvature in the floor. Standing up too suddenly made me aware of the curvature, but it definitely wasn't the first time. What I had been looking for, in fact, hung on the rough concrete wall in front of us.

Like two eyes, the clocks overlooked the rows of crankshafts and the people turning them in motion. Without judgment, they regarded both us crankmonkeys and the pressure adjusters at the end of each row; and the technicians scuttling in between the iron mechanisms, checking for water leaks. Only one clock, the one with the black rim, actually worked -- it showed five minutes till eleven. The white clock, on the contrary, always pointed precisely to twelve. It never, ever moved.

I passed the crankmonkeys huffing with effort and headed for the lounge door -- a simple wooden thing installed just below the two clocks, with a lightbulb in a metal cage hanging above it. It was unlocked. Wasn't always like this, too -- when the black clock showed six, no amount of knocking would get you in.

The lounge was a small room with several leather chairs, all facing the large window in the wall opposite the door. A coffee-table with an ashtray stood between them and the wall. Jonah rested his legs on the coffee-table, taking long drags from one of his old cigarettes. After I closed the door, the sound of water rushing underneath the floor became much more apparent than before.

"See, Thomthese," he said as I sank into a chair next to him. "I can read your mind, see. You're thinking, 'have they really started slacking off so much that they let ol' Jonah smoke his cigs in the lounge itself?' 'But,' I'll answer to your thoughts, 'you haven't seen anything, see. Ol' Jonah has been busy with a little art project over the last little while.' Check it."

I watched as Jonas finished most of the cigarette and then burned the butt into the chair. The rich leather dissolved beneath the embers, sending wisps of smoke towards the ceiling. On closer inspection, the burn contributed the final eye to a little smiley-face, clearly made over several smoking sessions. To Jonas' visible disappointment, I showed very little surprise at this development. I got out of my chair and leaned on the glass. I didn't want to smell burned leather.

"The time you busted Alfred 18's head through the window was way better, I still think," I said. "Was it two Paydays ago? Three?..."

"Heh, yeah," Jonah smiled in fond recollection. "The cock deserved it. I forget why, but he did. But c'mon, this is still pretty cool."

I did not look back. Jonah grumbled and joined me by the window.

The lounge itself didn't have any lights, and the only light came from this window.  There was a concrete shaft stretching a seemingly infinite depth and height just beyond, and the entire cavity was flooded with powerufl lights from the wall. In the centre, an enormous pipe carried water from somewhere far below. The pipe branched off to the sides of the channel, and every such branch had a little lounge window on top of it, just like the one we were in. Far below us -- maybe five levels -- a couple of technicians were dangling on safety ropes around the main water-pipe and fixing an ambitious leak squirting water into the bottomless void.

"I wonder what it looks like just after Payday," Jonah said.

"Looks like shit now."

"You look like shit."

"Yeah, I know. But not after Payday, I won't."

We stood in silence for a bit, watching the technicians fighting against the leak. I thought about how nice it was to have drink-maids carrying water around in the earlier phase of the Workday. Shame they had to be ordered home when the tremors started. And yet, the plant was safest when water pressure was at its highest - no tremors, just drink-maids and their refreshments. No leaks in the watermain.

Finally, the epoxy hardened, and the leak transformed from a playful fountain into a feeble and impotent drizzle before vanishing completely. The technicians rode their safety ropes up like spiders and disappeared somewhere above the visible levels. Just as they vanished, the floodlights gave out, and the lounge plunged into darkness.

"We must be real close now," Jonah said. It was difficult to see in the now-twilit lounge, although I did see the ember of his cigarette move back to the chair.

"Yeah," I said without moving. My eyes were locked on the watermain.

From behind us, a PA in the crankshaft room announced: "PAYDAY APPROACHING. A SHORT REST IS NOW PERMITTED." The water stopped hissing under the floor, and no more whine of cranks being turned came from behind the lounge door. Even if Payday could be considered a rest, a true rest from everything -- such as this -- was very rare in this place. Jonah and I made the best of it in silence, until another violent tremor sent the chairs tumbling against the wall.

The watermain budged, sprinking a massive leak down its midsection. The glass in the lounge shattered, and a cool spray reached us, two crumbled piles at the end of the room.

"To hell with it," I said. "I'll see you on the other side, Jonah."

He just grumbled, gathering himself off the floor. I was already back in the crankshaft chamber.

Jonah staggered back just in time, when the rest of us crankmonkeys had already been on our knees, heads bowed before the cranks. A PA counted down along with the smallest hand on the black clock.

Ten... nine... eight...

A loud crackling from somewhere beyond the roof shook the plant. Little wisps of glowing white gas and excited static within it materialized below the ceiling, spreading quickly and filling the entire engine room.

Seven... six... five...

The numbness began to set in as my vision struggled to compete against the growing light. It was so hard to see, but every sore was going away. In the lounge, I knew, Jonah's smiley face vanished gradually, as the Payday's power swept over it.

Four... three... two...

All smeared. All smudged.

...one.

And so it begins anew. The last memory of my Workday, the last secret discovered but never, no matter what, remembered at the beginning of the next Workday, came clear.

As the black-rimmed clock finally struck midnight, it stilled, and the white clock was set in motion.