Factory Story – Part 1

He walked through the morn­ing city rain under a small rain­bow coloured umbrel­la that was clear­ly not the sort of umbrel­la he would nor­mal­ly have used. His most­ly dull blue and black clothes con­trast­ed with the bright rain­bow of the umbrel­la. His shoes and the low­er half of his jeans were soaked.

Five min­utes ear­li­er he at the train-sta­tion with all the oth­er ill-pre­pared com­muters as the rain had start­ed. He had looked at his watch and then back to the sky, try­ing to deter­mine if he could wait out the down­pour. But he was already run­ning a few min­utes late. The only thing for it was to buy an over­priced umbrel­la from the near­by con­ve­nience store and con­tin­ue on.

So he arrived at the old fac­to­ry, most­ly wet any­way and with an umbrel­la he would prob­a­bly nev­er use again. He stood under a small awning and pushed the inter­com but­ton. The small speak­er hummed soft­ly and then splut­tered sta­t­ic.

A dis­tort­ed voice crack­led through the sta­t­ic. “Maxwell’s Christ­mas Fac­to­ry.”

“Jen­ny, it’s Nate.”

More sta­t­ic: “Jenny’s’not in today. Who is it?”

He leaned in clos­er to the speak­er grill. “Nate, Nathaniel.”

The sta­t­ic blast­ed again. “Nate’s not in yet.”

He actu­al­ly groaned. “No. I’m Nate. Come on, I’ve worked here for 4 months, its pour­ing down out here, just let me in.”

Noth­ing, not even sta­t­ic. He leaned against the door as he reached into his pock­et to retrieve his phone. The door buzzed as it unlocked and swung open behind him, he fell through and land­ed on his butt in a pud­dle of water on the cold con­crete floor.

He cursed loud­ly, got back to his feet and slammed the door closed behind. The sound echoed through the emp­ty fac­to­ry floor and for­got­ten machines, it had been over a decade since this fac­to­ry had actu­al­ly made any­thing. He tried to brush him­self off and head­ed up the stairs to the offices.

At the front desk sat the over­ly perky Scar­let. She smiled sweet­ly.

“Oh, Nate, it’s you.”

He nod­ded. “Yeah, me, wet, but still me.” He smiled back, hap­py to at least be in out of the weath­er. Even after 4 months he didn’t know what to make of Scar­let, she was always hap­py and sin­cere, but total­ly inef­fi­cient and unable to do the sim­plest of office tasks. He had no idea why she still had a job.

He head­ed into his office, set­ting down the very wet rain­bow umbrel­la and tak­ing off his most­ly wet jack­et. He push­es the ‘pow­er’ but­ton on the com­put­er and picks up his emp­ty cof­fee mug and leav­ing the com­put­er to start­up as he makes his way to the small kitch­enette at the end of the long nar­row hall.

First cof­fee of the day. Only instant, but still very impor­tant, as was the rit­u­al of mak­ing it. He turns quick­ly, fresh hot cof­fee in his mug, to return to his office and runs into Scar­let as she walks into the kitch­enette. Hot cof­fee goes all over his shirt.

“Oh, opps, that was clum­sy.” Scar­let smiles and push­es past him.

He could just tell. It was going to be one of those days.

—
Sto­ry con­tin­ues in part 2.

Part of my cre­ative writ­ing class. Week­ly Assign­ment 2.