Factory Story – Part 4

After lunch Nate found it dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate. Ner­vous­ness about the evenings date kept him for focus­ing on his work. He need­ed some­thing to take his mind of it.

Cof­fee.

He reached for the half full mug on his desk, lift­ed it to his lips and sipped. Cold cof­fee filled his mouth and he spat it back into the mug, real­is­ing he had made the cof­fee hours ago. Time for a refill.

The rain con­tin­ued to pour down on the fac­to­ries tin roof, fill­ing the build­ing with loud sooth­ing sounds. Much bet­ter than the con­tin­u­os christ­mas music that was piped though the fac­to­ries PA sys­tem.

He returned to his office, fresh cof­fee in hand and was sur­prised to find his boss wait­ing for him. More wor­ry­ing was that his boss was idling turn­ing the pack­age on Nate’s desk over and exam­in­ing it.

“Can I help you Jock?”

The old man jumped slight­ly, hav­ing been caught doing some­thing he should­n’t. He turned and frowned notic­ing Nate’s shirt­less­ness.

“Um, yeah, Scar­let said you got a pack­age.”

Nate nod­ded. “Yes. For me. Just some­thing I brought online.”

Nate reached over and picked up the pack­age and put it in his shoul­der bag under the desk as he final­ly fig­ure out what Jock was look­ing for.

“Is the new pro­to­type sup­posed to get here today?”

Jock nod­ded.

“Well, I’m sure it will turn up. I’m keen to see this thing myself.”

Jock nod­ded again. “Okay, well you will let me know if you get it.”

Nate shrugs. “Won’t it be addressed to you?”

Jock shrugged back. “The elves don’t always get this stuff right.” And he turned and left the room.

The rain start­ed to ease out­side and the sounds of ‘Jin­gle Bells’ Caribbean style could be heard through the loud­speak­ers. Nate reached over and turned on his radio to lis­ten to some­thing else, any­thing else.

He sipped at his cof­fee.

Scar­let knocked on his door and he frowns.

“Yes Miss Scar­let?”

She smiled and toss­es a bright yel­low t‑shirt at Nate.

“Found this in the store room.”

Nate lift­ed the shirt up and looked at it. On the shirt in gar­ish green and red let­ters is read: “Maxwell’s Where it’s Christ­mas every­day!”

“Um, thanks.”

Scar­let just shrugged. “Incase your shirt isn’t dry in time.”

Nate raised an eye­brow. “Well, i guess I could turn it inside out or some­thing. Thank Scar­let.”

Scar­let smiled bright­ly. “No prob­lems sug­ar.” And she turned and bounced off down the hall­way.

Nate eyed his trash bin, but decid­ed that would­n’t look good if Jock came back in, he shrugged and pulled the t‑shirt on, find­ing it was a size too small and hugs tight to his body. He was­n’t sure if this was bet­ter or worse than going shirt­less.

He was about to pull the shirt back over his head when he heard shout­ing from the oth­er end of the hall­way.

“Its hear, its hear!” bel­lowed Jock­’s voice.

An appear­ance at these sort of events was manda­to­ry. He had learnt that on his first week on the job.

Every­one gath­ered in the meet­ing room, a lit­tle over 20 peo­ple, squeezed into a room meant to hold 12. Nate looked around, some were like him and only turned up at these unveil­ings out of oblig­a­tion. Oth­ers, like Jock him­self, were actu­al­ly gen­uine­ly eager to see what the next major devel­op­ment in christ­mas dec­o­ra­tion tech­nol­o­gy was.

Jock was too eager to wait, he opened the large box and dove his arms into the poly­styrene pack­ag­ing peanuts and pulled out a tru­ly grotesque 2ft tall san­ta stat­ue.

Jock set it down on the table. The san­ta look old and stooped over, his cloak and clothes dark brown, his hair and beard unkept, a large hock nose and a grin that said “I’m going to steal your chil­dren” on his face.

Nate had nev­er seen such an un-christ­mas christ­mas dec­o­ra­tion. He loved it.

Jock was exam­in­ing it in great detail. To Nate’s total sur­prise Jocks first com­ment was:

“I expect­ed it to be ugli­er than that.”

Nobody else said any­thing, it seemed every­one was a lit­tle sur­prised at the idea of an ugly dec­o­ra­tion.

In this awk­ward silence blast­ed a flash of light­ning, fol­lowed less than a sec­ond lat­er by a loud boom of thun­der.

Then the lights went out.

Nate turned and ran out of the room and down the hall­ways and into the small util­i­ty clos­et that now housed the web serv­er. The machine was beep­ing loud­ly, its back­up bat­tery only good for 5 min­utes at most.

Nate pushed the big red ’emer­gency shut down’ but­ton. The but­ton did­n’t do any­thing, it was­n’t hocked up. But it felt good to press it any­way. He the pushed the small sil­ver but­ton on the front of each machine caus­ing them to save and shut­down safe­ly.

Anoth­er rum­ble of thun­der echoed through the build­ing.

Then the hail start­ed.

—
Sto­ry con­tin­ues in part 5.

Part of my cre­ative writ­ing class. Week­ly Assign­ment 5.