Chapter Eleven: Short End of the Stick
Freak-Out Time
Romeo Brady, District Eight Male
In the six years I've been working here, I've really grown to hate sewing.
It's not like I took this job because I knew I was going to love it. It was because we needed the money more than anything else. But there has to be a job out there that comes with a bit more variety than doing the same thing, over and over, every single day. Plus, this job manages to somehow be extremely difficult and extremely boring at the same time.
I can't really afford to waste that much time talking, even though since school let out my hours have been extended to full-time. Mostly because, ever since the disaster that occurred two years ago, I've been much slower than the other workers at my position.
This means that, three hours in, while my co-workers Sash and Levi are each putting their finishing touches on their first piece for the day (a baby blanket with a complex pattern on it), I haven't even passed the halfway mark on mine. And it's not like their finished pieces are any worse than mine. I just can't keep up with them anymore.
Levi goes to hand off his completed piece to the supervisor, who smiles and gives him his next piece to make. A few minutes later, Sash hands off hers, and the same exchange occurs.
That just leaves me. I'm adding new lines as fast as I can, but unfortunately, that's not good enough in this business.
"Romeo! Come on, could you go any slower?" This comes from my supervisor, Harold. "You know we have a quota to meet by tomorrow!"
I want to go faster, but I don't see how I can do that without having the blanket turn into a mess. I know that because every time I focus solely on speed and not accuracy, my finished products less resemble a finished garment and look more like someone just taped together some fabric and called it a day.
I just respond, "Trying my best!"
"Well your best isn't good enough! I ought to fire you for this!"
I resist the urge to snicker. He's said that at least once a week ever since I got moved to the "fancy items" section of the workplace. However, he never follows through with it, because I've been working here since age ten and the turnover rate at this station is so high. Most people don't stay long here (I'd say about 75% of employees ask for transfers within the first two weeks of working here), and a lot of the time I'm the only person with any experience making these things.
Meaning, a lot of the time I'm spending more time explaining to my new co-workers how to make various items than, well, making the items.
However, they still manage to become faster workers than me in only a couple of days, because last time I checked, it's pretty hard to sew very fast (or at all) when you're missing fingers like I am.
Oh, right, my fingers. Two years ago, I used to have all ten, like a normal person. However, after an incident involving me, a faulty machine designed to "pound" shirts and pants flat to make them look more appealing, and a missing yardstick, I got my fingers pounded when I was just trying to get it to work on a shirt.
One surgery later, I came out four fingers short of an average person- three and a half on my left hand, two and a half on my right. Even though I got next to no sympathy from my boss, at least he moved me to a position where I didn't have to work with machines anymore- the "fancy items" section, where workers made designs that were so complex the machines couldn't replicate them properly.
Sash and Levi have come back, each of them having picked up another design for a baby blanket and started sewing.
Meanwhile, all I can think is that I need to concentrate on the one I have in front of me.
Lowering my head again, I return to work, hoping that I can at least finish something today.
As it turns out, seven hours of monotony later, I manage to turn in the baby blanket and a special-order shirt.
As I pass my stuff forward, the boss gives me my earnings for the day. It's not much, since he bases our wages on how much product we produce as opposed to how long we work (which is unfair, but I'm not really in a position to complain).
Finally, I walk out of that cursed factory and get a chance to see the sun again. Well, the faint imprint that it makes on the smoke-covered sky, anyway.
Eyes stinging a little from the terrible air (even though I've gotten used to it), I begin the short trek back home, not wanting to wait any longer than I have to before I can rest my mind.
Our "home" would honestly be more fitting for mice than for us.
I mean, we only have two rooms. One for us to (just barely) fit three mattresses on the floor so we all have a place to sleep, and one where we do everything else. It's boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. The electricity works maybe a quarter of the time, and the toilet is so faulty it backs up every other time we try to use it (although at least we're lucky enough to have a toilet, period).
The place is literally falling down around us. The roof sags in spots, the dividing wall is starting to crack, and even the door is showing its age: it's splintery and the hinges are coated with a thick layer of rust.
Opening the door slowly to make sure that it won't just fall off the hinges (it wouldn't have been the first time), I step inside the blazing-hot house, trying to see who's home.
As it turns out, that answer is everybody. Mom, Dad, and my three siblings, Nathan Jr., Brielle, and Cassius (I don't know where my parents got that name from).
Brielle, as always, takes notice of me first. "Hey, everyone! Romeo's home!"
All of a sudden, I have five pairs of eyeballs pointed my way.
Silently, I toss the little money I've made today on the wobbly table that we usually eat on, saying, "This is the money I made today. Hopefully, it helps."
Dad goes to pick it up. "Romeo, you know every bit helps. If the house is any indication, we're not exactly very high on the District totem pole."
He's one hundred percent right- what I make would be next to nothing for a lot of the wealthier residents of the Districts, but it sure as hell is plenty for us- it's enough to buy a half-decent meal or two, and is a nice addition to Mom, Dad, and Nathan Jr.'s paychecks, which cover the bare basics and a tiny bit extra.
Since I'm currently very sweaty from working in a stuffy building for the past ten hours, I decide to go change into my other set of clothes. However, when I look into the cardboard box that houses all our clothing, I notice it's empty.
"Uhh, Mom? Did you move my clothes again?" She does that a lot, and I never know why. Usually it's because she's trying to fold it, but when she does that, she takes one set at a time.
Mom calls out from the other room. "I have them all in a bin. I was planning to send Brielle down to the Laundromat with some money to make sure they're at least clean for tomorrow. I want everyone to at least look clean for Reaping Day. And speaking of that, tesserae day's today, can someone go to the Justice Building and pick up our monthly ration?"
Cassius, of course, instantly declines. "I don't want anyone to see me with that stuff."
It's annoying, but he always wants to give out the impression that we're in a better position than we actually are. It's like he doesn't realize that there are people in our family besides him who go outdoors, and it's not like we care much about what other people think about our financial status.
So, I decide to step in. "I got this."
Mom smiles. "That's the spirit!"
With a bit of spring in my step, I move outside, heading towards the mayor's office.
In no time at all, I reach the crowded, soot-covered city.
There's a long line spilling outside the Justice Building, which I immediately get on, waiting patiently in line for the family's grain and oil.
It's moving surprisingly quickly, considering that the only person running he thing seems to be a girl even younger than I am. In what seems like no time at all, I'm close enough to the girl to see that her dress is patched in way too many spots to count.
A few short minutes later, I'm standing right in front of her as she looks at me with a blindingly white smile.
"Excuse me, what's your last name?"
"Brady."
She pulls up a small packet up stapled-together papers and quickly scans it. "You're on the list, your stuff will be here in a second." She turns behind her. "Bernard! I need six sacks, stat!"
A hefty kid who looks to be about eighteen quietly sets six tesserae sacks in front of me. "Here you go, sir."
There's no way I can carry all of those. Thankfully, I brought a wheelbarrow that my family bought eight years ago specifically for this purpose. Even then, it's still a huge struggle to push the food that will keep all six of us going without breaking the wheelbarrow.
It's going to be a nightmare getting home. Especially since most of the way home is uphill.
However, I manage to strike lucky. Just passing by are two friends of mine, Leif and Raiden. Surprisingly, they notice me before I even say anything.
"Oh, hey there, Romeo," Raiden starts off.
"Need help with the load?" Leif immediately says this following their introduction.
"I sure do," I reply.
Wordlessly, Raiden takes two sacks and Leif takes two sacks, and each of them put the sacks in their own wheelbarrows.
"We just finished wheeling in our own stuff," Raiden explains. "It's much easier for us, neither of us have any siblings."
While the lack of siblings does make their lives a little bit easier, I've been to their houses before, and trust me, they're just as bad off as we are. Leif lives in a crumbling shack that's even smaller than ours, although he only has a mother to share it with (his dad died when he was little from an infection after he got his hand impaled by a dirty sewing needle), and Raiden lives in a similar shack with his parents, although he has the luxury of a bathtub (even though an actual bath is more hassle than it's worth, because the water quality here is bad enough you have to boil it for sixty seconds before it's safe to drink or bathe in).
With the way home much less stressful now that we're splitting the load, we walk out of town, heading back for the shack I call home.
Soon enough, we arrive back to where I live, all of us sweating from pushing a weight so far uphill.
"Thanks for the help, guys," I say, trying to be polite, especially considering that they probably have somewhere to be at this point.
"No problem, Romeo." Leif smiles. Then the two of them head back the way they came, now with completely empty wheelbarrows. Knowing the two of them, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to ride them downhill. (They don't know this, but I tried that once. Let's just say that it did not end well, and leave it at that.)
I manage to drag all six sacks inside, shaking from exhaustion. Too tired to speak, I just tap Mom and point to the food.
Immediately, she nods, picks up a sack, and tears it open. Looks like we're having tesserae bread and water for dinner… again.
Sure enough, half an hour later, we all get a piece of tesserae bread- the kind that's designed to resemble a pillow in everything but taste. It's not that bad, actually- just not very filling since there's so much air and so little substance in each bite. Thankfully, the way it's made means there's a lot of it, more than you'd get from other Districts' tesserae breads (at least, from the short glimpses I've seen of each of them while inside the tiny bakery in town), so you get the same amount of bread either way.
After all the piping-hot bread and lukewarm water is gone (lukewarm because we both lack a fridge and need to boil our water before we drink it), Mom disappears, probably to get our clothes for Reaping Day tomorrow. Immediately afterward, Dad, who's so tired right now that he can barely speak, just staggers into the bedroom and flops down on a mattress.
As for everyone else, we put up with Brielle's endless chatter about the most pointless, inane topics imaginable. I don't know why she's so talkative, but seriously, all of us have wondered on more than one occasion if she comes with an "off" button.
Once the sun goes down, the electricity, inconveniently enough, stops working, leaving us in darkness. The smoke and haze in the sky is too thick for the moon to easily penetrate, so all we can see of it is a light gray, messy smudge in a starless sky.
As if she runs on a timer, Brielle always goes to bed exactly when the sun goes down. It's like magic- the electricity fails, she finishes her sentence, and then goes off to the other room to lie down on one of the mattresses.
After about fifteen minutes of sitting around in the dark, Mom finally gets back with the clothes, and hangs them all over a chair, instructing the rest of us, "wear these tomorrow. It's the one time of year where people care about how you look. Don't screw it up for everyone else, please!"
After that, I go to the mattresses myself, closely followed by Cassius, Mom, and Nathan Jr., since there's just nothing to do now since we can barely see.
Cassius takes his place on the far side of Brielle's mattress (don't worry, we have a dividing plank up on that mattress so they don't, you know, bump into each other too hard), Mom does the same to Dad's mattress. Finally, I sprawl on the empty one, leaving Nathan the other side.
Even with Reapings tomorrow, none of us seem to care. We've gotten apathetic towards them over the years- it seems like every year a kid outside any of our age ranges is sent off to die. And even though we take tesserae for extra slips in the bowl (most of them in Nathan's name and a couple in mine) so many other families do it's not very risky.
Finally, my head hits the spot of the mattress where a pillow should be, and I'm asleep almost instantly.
Well, what goes on tomorrow is out of my hands. But I'll probably be fine.
Then the darkness closes in on me, and everything falls into oblivion.
Author's Notes:
-Thanks to IciclePower33 for sending in Romeo.
-Coming up next is the first (and only) tribute by Ripplerz, the D7M.
-Following that comes the D6F, D8F, and D12F.
-Thanks for bearing with me until this chapter came out. Again, they'll come out a little faster now that I have more time to write (since midterms are over).
-See you next chapter!