bigbutadorable (.) blogspot (.) com

Setting aside the wet and tired body, the afternoon's work went without any incidents.

On the night bus, Nicholas fell asleep shivering with cold. It was still pouring. The bus broke through the darkness and the heavy rain. Finally, Nicholas made it home late at night soaking wet.

"I'm home."

"You're home?"

Logan, who was baking something in the kitchen, welcomed Nicholas. His second son, Dustin, silently held out a dry clean towel. Nicholas walked into the house, wiping his hair and chin with the towel his son had handed him. It had been raining all day, so the inside of the house was extremely damp.

"Yeah... Are you okay? It rained all day today."

"It was good. The umbrella was useless though. So I came home soaked, too."

"What about you, Dustin?"

"The usual."

Unlike Logan, who loved welcoming people, his younger brother, Dustin was a lot quieter. Logan had a nice personality resembling his father, was warm to anybody, and was good at taking care of the house. On the opposite, Dustin was so quiet Nicholas had a hard time guessing what was inside that boy's head. He's the kind of person who gets very focused when doing his thing.

The friendly and talkative Logan was working in a small grocery store in a business district, while Dustin repaired small things in a hardware store. Neither of them had a high enough contribution level to move up the ranks, but better shaped than Nicholas.

Dustin threw the towel that Nicholas had used into the laundry basket and went into his bedroom right away. Recently, Nicholas was told that his second child was trying to find a new job in the arts field, so now he was working on something in his room. The boy, besides having good dexterity at shaping and fixing things, his artistic sense was also excellent. What Dustin lacked was the opportunity to receive higher education.

Nicholas' aesthetic perspective was indeed not very good. However, he was rooting for Dustin after hearing his explanation that he could increase his contribution level and gets a better job. His personality hardly resembled Nicholas', but his body and voice were identical. It sometimes still surprises Nicholas to see a boy holding a piece of wood considering his clumsy appearance.

"I'm glad you didn't have extra work."

"Yeah. In fact, since it's been raining a lot lately, It looks like there will be no overtime work for some time to come... They say they need time to maintain the work site."

Nicholas sat down in front of the table for a late dinner. Logan, accompanying his father like usual, was serving freshly prepared hot food on the old man's plate. It was just shredded fries with various vegetables, but the fragrant smell was excellent.

"You have to be careful too. The rain is beyond crazy. I can see on the bus earlier, the road must have been very slippery."

"It doesn't though. It's really odd but the road doesn't get that slippery. When will the rain stop anyway? I don't know if it's because of the rain, but looks like the radio is broken too."

"Really?"

There was no TV in Nicholas's house. Besides taking up too much space and a high license fee, no one was going to watch anyway. They're already been used to listening to the world news on the radio.

The old radio had been working well for several years, thanks to the maintenance Dustin always did. However, according to Logan, the radio had only been making a squeaking sound in the past few days.

Curious, Nicholas picked up the radio and shook it. There was no sound of a missing screw nor the same old abnormalities.

"Dustin said it's not a mechanical defect... It could be because it's a very old radio or because of the large amount of rain these days."

Logan took the radio from Nicholas' hands and turned it on, choosing whatever channel was clean enough. A news reporter's voice was heard.

[...has been raining every day―]

But was cut off not long after and soon, changed into a squeak sound the boy had spoken of.

[Shh- Shhh... squeak- squeak-]

The sound was too strange to be dismissed as noise due to a mechanical defect. It sounded more like an organism, some kind of beast probably.

"So when you switch to the main channel you get this sound, right?"

"Yeah, it's been that way since yesterday."

"Hm, maybe Dustin can help us to get a new radio at his workplace. Something nice and cheap," said Nicholas, ignoring the startling noise of the radio.

Logan nodded. "Okay, I'll talk to him."

"Great. Thank you, son."

"You need to go to bed now. It's late... You have work tomorrow too, right? I'll wash your work clothes. I don't know if they'll dry up in this weather though..."

"Woah, that's awesome. This father is so strong because his boys always helping. Thank you, Logan."

"What? It's just washing."

It had become a habit for Nicholas to express the little things he was grateful for to his children. After the death of his wife, he realized that keeping words will only leave regrets in the future.

It was late, as Logan said. After taking a hot bath, Nicholas crawled into the old bed and wrapped himself in a blanket. Just as he was about to fall asleep, something―felt like an insect―was crawling over his naked body. Nicholas opened his eyes, got up, and threw the blanket over. It was a humid day, maybe there were some bugs in the bed.

But, thinking again, as his eyes were already on the edge of falling asleep, Nicholas decided to stay still. He was too lazy to go up and turn on the lights and have to find the bug and then kick it out of bed. His eyes were too heavy, so the helpless worker just pulled the blanket back and curled up again.

In sleep, Nicholas' hands moved unconsciously to scratch his forearms and chest. The places that had been soaked with rain during the day tickled enough to forget.

*   *   *

It rained continuously the other day and the next. Having had to continue to work in the damp without exposure to the sun for several dozen days, the workers' morale was in a state of decline. Even those who were usually chatty during the break became increasingly silent. Everyone seemed to be sick.

Today, during the short break, people chose to gather in front of a screen instead of talking. It played a game called soccer (said to be a popular game on the ancient planet). A game in which the little red and blue dots would race each other to steal the white dot, i.e. the ball.

No one here was free enough to have time to play, so all the scenes were just virtual images. A mere embodiment of humanity's desire to have fun playing.

"Attention!"

Instead of announcing that the break was over, the supervisor hit the workshop wall. The poorly constructed temporary building made a loud noise. And soon, dozen eyes of workers, crowding in front of the game screen, turned direction.

"That's all for today."

"What?"

A small shout of applause erupted from one side and a voice full of complaints buzzed from the other. It was still lunch, but when the supervisor said today's job was done, the workshop quickly became a mess.

"Quiet!"

The supervisor hit the wall again. Gradually, the buzz of the workers subsided, then came total silence.

"I know it's confusing. But it's an emergency, we can't help it."

"What about our pay?"

Someone shouted from one of the corners. Everyone else was also curious, so they all looked in the supervisor's direction demanding an answer.

"Unfortunately, we can't pay in full. Because the job was unilaterally canceled."

"What? You can't do that!"

The workshop buzzed once again. The supervisor's response was enough to create a ruckus as some people here only have one source of living. It upset Nicholas too to have to go home with only his morning wage.

"It's not decided yet! What can I do with orders from above?"

The supervisor looked as frustrated as the laborers. He, too, was just a worker with enough wage. Nothing will change even if the laborers push or attack him as he did not have much power or authority.

"The bus is already waiting outside. They'll take everyone home safe."

The supervisor didn't say anything about the afternoon's cancellation, so Nicholas raised his hand and asked, wondering if it was because of the rain.

"So, are we going to work normally tomorrow?"

"They haven't said anything about it, so I don't have much to say. Let's just do the usual."

"That's very funny."

People were still buzzing with complaints, causing the supervisor to give up on silencing them. Fortunately, no one seemed to be in the mood for violence. This humid air and the weather seemed to have contributed to keeping people from acting in revolt.

The complaints continued to come out of the mouths of the people waiting for the bus. Nicholas stood quietly in the doorway of the workshop, watching the rain fall outside. He could not hear the murmuring from the front, but could clearly hear the ones on the back.

"I think I'd be lost if I dare break through this crazy rain."

"It's dirty, you know. It got my face burns and tickles."

"That's because your immunity is too weak and not in clean condition."

"I heard people are losing their hair because of the rain. Man, it better not be true."

The first part of the conversation was interesting, but later, when they talked about the hair falling out because of the rain, it was no longer nourishing. Sometimes Nicholas couldn't quite catch what they talked about because of the itchy feeling on his body. He was also quite surprised to find scratches all over his chest and forearms when he woke up in the morning. In some places, it was so scratched that a crust had formed.

"All work was canceled because of the rain?"

"I don't know, but from what I hear, all the supplies that went to the center were rejected."

"Why? Did the business partner go bankrupt?"

"I don't know. They said that everything I carried in the morning couldn't get into the city. Something serious is going on."

"A lot is going on. Even the useless ones like us need to know."

Lucky. Although the top line refused not to tell the workers of the detailed circumstances, news sure spread fast.

Nicholas finally got on the bus. After raining all day, half the road was underwater. The drainage channel was not working properly. The bus moved on, creating large streams of water on both sides. Nicholas looked out the window with a serious look on his face, hoping that nothing would happen to his boys.



PREV   ◆   TOC   ◆   NEXT


RELATED NOVELS: