End of the world nonsense (551 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 0.38 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by TJHOM (View user info) at 2009-04-15 12:48:05 EDT
Before i even submit this to my class id like your opinion
Garbage Collecting
The bodies of children were the easiest to carry. In a single shift we had to haul somewhere between fifty to a hundred and fifty bodies. The smallest of the bodies were the children and I once lifted three with both arms and tossed them into the truck. Their bodies span over one another in the crisp air and one did not make it all the way in. The corpse smashed against the loading step with a crunch and it's teeth sprayed across the road like tiny precious gems.
The diesel truck we used to haul them was older than any of the other vehicles on the road, but far better maintained, for it was constantly driven, stopping only for us to jump off the back and haul the bodies from the front of the drop sites. Then of course it drove during the night shift. I would have joined the night shift at the start if I had been able to. However it wasn't convenient for me to get to the compound in the evenings, I would have had to ride several kilometres over the unkempt, rubbish strewn roads or otherwise rely on another worker to pick me up. That was not really a possibility as none of the other workers liked me at all, they liked me even less than they liked the night shift, where things got as they said 'spooky'. Arthur didn't seem to mind me that much, I think he was quite simple really, but in any case he wouldn't have joined the nightshift if someone had paid him a million dollars.
After we received a full load of bodies the truck would lurch its way up the hill towards the massive crematorium 'black sally'. I think it was actually called Furn: 1010, but I cant really be sure, me and Arthur used to call it black sally because it really was completely black from all the soot and the curves of the twin domes reminded us of massive breasts. The truck would reverse up to the huge doors at the base of the building, (which reminded us of something else feminine) there we would have to slide the bodies out of the truck and onto an industrial conveyer belt that ran deep into the belly of the building. At that point we would switch over our breathing packs with the spares in the workers quarters and after going to the loo, we'd head off again.
The sky wasn't blue in those days; it was perpetually yellow, as if the sun was frozen, sinking into the horizon. It didn't really bother me as I wore the heavy breathing mask that filtered out most of the harsher rays anyway. Besides I was looking down and straightforward most of the time, I didn't have time for staring at the clouds, none of us did. From what I remember, a war had caused all this mess, well at least the idea of a war. One of the governments at the time released something called Myoxonic or something, against the enemies they had. The chemical agent was uncontrollable; it had evolved or so they said and eventually swept over the globe following the wind. People became lethargic and then horribly sick with some kind of disease. Eventually they would die once their brains had melted and their eyes had swollen and burst. Some took longer than others and some simply didn't get sick for some reason or another. I wasn't sure if I could be sick, I had been evacuated into the compounds along with several hundred others, but I wore the mask when I worked anyway. Eventually the government released something called Yellow Berry into the air. For all I knew it's only purpose was to turn the sky that horrible colour. It didn't do shit in stopping the disease, yet they kept saying that it would eventually take effect, in the mean time people were to live in the compounds. The rest of us picked up the bodies and took them to the crematoriums.
There wasn't any music anymore, I think that's what bothered me the most, life was short and made shorter by all these realities, the loss of smell, the loss of clean air and the loss of music. Everything was too real, the noise of the trucks, the bones crunching under the wheels, the moans of the half dead and the sickening cry of ravens. What I would have given for just a little music. Sometimes we hummed in the truck, but you can only hum for so long and the noise inside the masks was too distorted by our breath, the moisture from our mouths, it was all garbled and too real. Death was no longer something you sometimes worried about and then put into a dark place in your head, it was as real as the yellow sky and the bodies placed out in the streets. I think it was the death that replaced the music; there couldn't be any music when there were so few ears to enjoy it.
I guess we were the garbage collectors, although the others seldom spoke of our work in this way. There was garbage everywhere but nobody to care about it, the bodies had to be moved and then burned, otherwise the disease would keep spreading apparently, I saw that some of the older bodies were covered in white polyps so maybe that's what they were talking about. Everything else, the garbage on the roads and outside the houses were just useless objects, whatever value they once had, sentimental or otherwise had melted away with the disease. We shifted the new garbage, the remains of life. There was no ceremony to it, no religion, just a pitiful wage, which we spent on anything, we could snort, inject or drink to make ourselves forget.
On one Wednesday, not that the actual day meant anything to anyone, Arthur and I were moving along one of the main streets. This was one of the less populated areas, most of the people had been moved to the compounds a year or so ago and the body count wasn't going to be very high. However the disease had certainly been through there and the quarantine workers had laid out the garbage. We were about a third of the way though the shift when I heard a distinct noise rising over the trucks rumbling and the breathing in my mask. It was a strangely melodic sound and it had caused me to stop involuntarily. I stood up straight, looking past the pile towards a recently abandoned housing block. The grey building stood gloomily in the yellow light, its concrete walls cracked like opened wounds, its windows smashed in like torn membranes, the glass lying in shards across the yellow grass reflecting the endless putrid yellow of the day. I realised that the sound was coming from one of the windows, everyone who had occupied the residence were piled up before me yet I was sure the noise was coming from a living being, a child.
Ignoring the angry cries from Arthur I strode towards the building and into the gaping darkness of its open doorway. Moving fast I made my way up the stairs. Inside, there was blood and waste on almost everything and the walls were covered in hand written prayers to a silent god. I stumbled over a broken chair and into a small bedroom. It was as filthy as the rest of the building however the dust had been disturbed as if something alive had been moving around. I swept my gaze from side to side, straining to hear over the wheezing of my respirator. There she was, a little girl of perhaps seven years old, crouched by an old stuffed toy and singly softly. I was captured by her sound, it tricked into my ears and swept over apart of me that had been dead for some time. She was drunk in her illness, blood seeped from her ears and nose and she swayed uncontrollably from her position on the floor. I wondered why the quarantine workers hadn't found her and whisked her away to one of the compounds, perhaps she had been hiding in a cupboard, or perhaps they saw that she would die eventually. I moved towards her, I was so large and foolish that I must of startled her for she looked straight at me. The two wells of opaline blue conveyed her fear and anguish. A few words swam from her mouth and collected in my ears, I knelt down to her but she collapsed in a monstrous fit and then lay still. She was certainly dead now and I had seen thousands like her, but still I was frozen before her. Slowly I took off my heavy leather coat and wrapped her up into it. I held her shrouded body and walked down the stairs, over the rubbish-strewn floor and into the sunlight.
The truck was moving slowly in the distance, I could see Arthur feverishly hurling corpses into its maw and I felt a number of pathways open up before me. I turned and walked; I trudged up the hill slowly towards black sally. The sky remained ever an unchanging yellow and the only noise was the crunching of gravel beneath my boots, the heavy breathing from my mask and the echo of the child's song, on and on as if the world had never changed. The body was light but cold in my arms, some of the child's hair had seeped from between the coat and shimmered in the foul breeze. But everything remained the same and the bodies of children were the easiest to carry.
(a1162050)
User Reviews
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-04-18 12:43:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-04-18 16:40:35 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
oh how foolish of me you are so right
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Truth.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-04-18 11:40:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
oh how foolish of me you are so right
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-04-18 10:50:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Seriously, it's like a shit version of Children of Men or something.
Shit.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-04-18 10:45:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-04-18 15:25:31 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-04-18 14:28:42 BST (#)
Ranking: -2
I thought these comments were really bitchy and uncalled for
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It's Uber.
And this was awful.
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It's clearly just a kid, I am being motherly.
Anyway, I have read worse.
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Who cares how old? This is shit.
Yes, there's worse, but this is down there.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-04-18 10:25:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-04-18 14:28:42 BST (#)
Ranking: -2
I thought these comments were really bitchy and uncalled for
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It's Uber.
And this was awful.
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It's clearly just a kid, I am being motherly.
Anyway, I have read worse.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-04-18 09:28:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
I thought these comments were really bitchy and uncalled for
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It's Uber.
And this was awful.
Submitted by mles76 (user info) at 2009-04-17 15:33:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-04-17 13:43:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-04-17 07:23:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
...
I read this last night, I thought these comments were really bitchy and uncalled for - I mean old shlong and the toddler alter you expect to give flack but these reviews disappointed me.
Interesting read but needs a lot of editing, which now all these hours later, I can't remember what I was going to suggest...
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Do you honestly think that the sentence "Before i even submit this to my class id like your opinion" constitutes any significant familiarity with writing in the English language? There are at least six reasons in this sentence alone for my throwing this idiot's resume in the trashcan without reading further.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-04-17 07:23:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-04-15 18:32:06 BST (#)
Ranking: -2
Dont post shit on the internet that you intend to submit for school.
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Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-04-15 17:53:12 BST (#)
Ranking: -2
"Before i even submit this to my class id like your opinion"
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Your writing belies any significant familiarity with the language in which it is supposed to be presented. This is my opinion.
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I read this last night, I thought these comments were really bitchy and uncalled for - I mean old shlong and the toddler alter you expect to give flack but these reviews disappointed me.
Interesting read but needs a lot of editing, which now all these hours later, I can't remember what I was going to suggest...
Submitted by SilentRenegade (user info) at 2009-04-16 19:19:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
that was a cool story
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-04-16 12:01:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2009-04-16 09:22:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-04-15 23:45:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
THANKS FOR TRYING TO TAKE BACK UBERSITE,DOOD
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2009-04-15 18:21:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2009-04-15 16:39:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
reads like a retarded version of 'The Stand'
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Who read The Stand to you, you ignorant cunt?
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2009-04-15 16:39:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
reads like a retarded version of 'The Stand'
Submitted by Toddler (user info) at 2009-04-15 14:40:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
JESUS FUCKING BARF
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-04-15 13:32:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Dont post shit on the internet that you intend to submit for school.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-04-15 12:53:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
"Before i even submit this to my class id like your opinion"
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Your writing belies any significant familiarity with the language in which it is supposed to be presented. This is my opinion.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2009-04-15 12:51:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Your class is gonna say "this fucking blows".