The boiler room was always aglow – at least, always during the wintertime. It had to be, otherwise the castle, along with its inhabitants, would freeze. Thus, the workers in the boiler room were at their busiest during the wintertime. In the summer, though, they were never as busy. But…they found ways to be.
Whether it was their lucky day and they got to bring warmth to the castle during one of France's freak spring blizzards (which rarely ever happened), or they spent their time performing menial, less-important tasks, they always found ways to keep busy. 'Busy' was all they knew…had known for a long time, or what seemed like a long time. It was what kept them sane. If ever there came a moment when there was no use for them…what then? Might their work be interrupted long enough for them to remember who – what – they were?
But no, there was no ignoring or forgetting it. Never. Not a worker in that room could possibly forget what they were – and what they were no longer. An axe. A poker. A boiler. All the trimmings. You name it.
Could the axe, the supervisor of the boiler room, really forget the not-so-long-ago time when he had arms and legs? Was able to walk and lift things (mostly axes) with two hands? But he knew, as did everyone in the boiler room – in the entire castle – that there was nothing in the whole world they or anyone else could do about their situation. Everyone in the castle knew that they only had one hope of ever becoming human again, and however small that hope seemed, they hung onto it as if…as if it wasn't a hope at all, but a certainty. Not a one of them ever allowed themselves to believe that the spell might not be broken, not even for a minute. A second…perhaps…but the thought terrified them.

"Forever?" one of the boiler room pokers repeated one day, after overhearing a conversation between some of the other castle servants. He was one of the younger members in the workroom.
The axe said nothing. It was the middle of spring, so there was nothing particularly important that the tools – the people – needed to be doing. When he wasn't supervising,he busied himself with making sure the boiler room had everything it needed – or rather, everyone. When he wasn't doing that, he gave the place a walk-through. And when he wasn't doing that, well…
As a human, he had hobbies, of course. His father (he remembered his father) had taught him everything he knew about…well, boiler rooms. He taught him the proper way to hold an axe ('make sure the head is never loose'), which angle to hit with ('and never leave your axe on the ground, someone might get hurt.')
…But being an axe, there really wasn't much he could do in the way of hobbies. Which was why it was important to him – and to the others – that they were all kept busy.
If one thought too much, one might fall into despair. Every single worker in the boiler room was guilty of such, in truth, but they didn't always speak of it to one another. The axe insisted it was better to keep doing their jobs until the day the spell broke.
'Until.' There was never an 'if.'
Day came, night passed. Day came, night passed.

Secretly, some of the boiler room workers dreaded the thought of having nothing to do, nothing but their thoughts to occupy them. When work was over, they rested – did animate objects need to rest? – and conversed with one another. Sometimes, a hammer or an axe or poker would stray to one of the quieter corners of the boiler room and prepare to relax for a minute or so. Only once in a blue moon, when they got to day-dreaming about being human, would they forget, just for a moment, that they weren't what they once were. They would glance down, surprised to see no legs. Breaks never lasted long.
Those more frail in spirit dreaded the coming of summertime, when their work load wasn't at its peak. The beginning of the warmer seasons, to some of them, was as disheartening as the ending of one to a child who must return to school.
"I'm only content when I'm working," one of the workers once sullenly replied when the axe supervisor asked whether or not he'd "like a break, ya?"
The axe supervisor may be a bit forward, but he did care about the well-being of the workers. Like the others, his chief method of dealing with the transformation, even after all these years, was to pour himself into his work. His strong (human) soul and bold heart – yes, he still had a heart, even if he had no rib cage to carry it in – knew that he needed to make the best of the situation. He needed to have faith that the curse would one day be broken.
One day, they would be human again and put the days of inanimacy behind them.
Although… the notion of forgetting was no more realistic than…well, than the notion of the entire castle waking up one morning to find themselves human again (though all of them had dreamed such.) Even if they all became human again, they could never forget their days as they lived them under the spell. Who could? It wasn't a natural sort of punishment (punishment…for whom? The innocent?) It wasn't as if the Enchantress came to the castle and told the prince he was grounded.
No, of course they could never forget, even if they wanted to.
'Alright,' the axe thought to himself, 'back to work now, no more of this thinking and wishing.' And he promptly launched himself into a block of wood.

On gloomier days, they'd repeat it to each other, it seemed, over and over.
'There's nothing we can do, there's nothing we can do.'
More than one worker in the boiler room had once compared the flames of the boiler to those of Hell. The more spirited workers tried to convince them that it wasn't nearly as bad as all that, that they were just depressed. Whatever their moods, they all agreed that the boiler seemed more menacing than it did when they were human – not to say anything about the man who had been turned into the boiler. It was bigger, louder.
Naturally, though, years of working in the boiler room in their current state had desensitized them to their new perspective. Not long after their transformation, they began to grow used to their short statures. Used to, but not exactly fond of.
So it was that they labored as much as they could, year after year. The boiler stuck to his duties, the pokers and hammers and tongs performed their tasks. The axe continued to supervise. Years and years had gone by since they were last human, and it all boiled down to one true, undeniable reality: this is how it is.
Which is what they believed, at last. They stuck to their work and kept their 'chins' up, and tried to keep a positive attitude because…because they must.
And in the deep hours of the night, they slept.
And perhaps…they dreamed.