The Worker

Stale choleric wafts of unwashed hands drifted towards the porcelain basin slamming into the wall and fumbling along the wallpaper like cockroaches searching for moisture.  He forgets to turn on the light as he enters and reaches back with his hands running along the wall.  The light comes on.  Looking at the grimy grey-eyed face in the mirror, which matches the brown-grey overalls, he discovers the gargoyle that entered their home.1

After handling cleaning products to purify the city’s water he comes home unable to lift the smell from his body.  His hands are constantly tortured by purifying chemicals as he works in the plant – washed, re-washed dried and sucked of their moisture like a desert gaining new fault-lines with age and exposure.  Now they are about to be washed again before supper.  As the floods of water hammer his hands they drive more moisture out.  Seven p.m.2

Ten minutes ago he had walked through the front door to greet his wife and daughter.  As they witnessed this stranger enter their house they did not see the father of the house but a worker.  A strange creature compelled to leave them for labour that bears the unbearable texture of a living corpse.  It was not until he spoke that they recognised his tender voice as their husband and father.  “You look as though you’ve seen a monster,” He said to them.  “It’s just me.”3

“We know honey. . .  It’s just. . .  You’re so late.  We didn’t know whether we should wait.”4

“Yea, I worked overtime.  It’s okay, when I’m late go ahead and eat without me.”5

“Why?”6

“Because Judith, I’m making money for us.  Don’t give me a hard time.  And you need to eat.  You shouldn’t wait for me.  I’ve worked really hard today and we need the money.”7

“I know Ted,” she says scrambling toward him like a crab – fighting the vile musk of his occupation.  She can barely stand holding him in her arms, but he grabs her firmly like the teddy bear she knows.  And she forces herself to hold him so he can smell the vanilla on her neck.  This sweet smell is his only redemption from waste and chlorine.  She begins to let go, trying not to choke on this factory she holds before her. 8

“Ted, it’s just-”9

“Just nothing!  Don’t worry about it.”10

He turns and looks at his daughter.  “Well?”11

Hesitantly, Susan ventures towards this stranger who she knows is her father, but does not smell as she remembers him.  It was his first day at the plant and already she could not recognise him any more.  It would continue that way. . .  Every night he would look more and more like a zombie from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.  He became the waste he worked so hard to clean from the water and she forgot how to greet him.  When she saw her mother hold him she realized that she must do the same.12

Ted hated that he had become the water he was cleaning, which provided life for so many, that was slowly robbing him of his family’s love.  He knew that his wife had held back her disgust as she approached him.  He admired her strength and love. 13

*                             *                                         *14

This was his life.  He came home with the pungent breath, slept with it, woke up with it in his mouth and revived it at work.  He became a smoker of chlorine when he took this job and could never relieve himself of the dry taste in his mouth.  The ventilation system at work was useless.  Disgusted he spat on the driveway before he entered his house.  His life had been work since he was twenty, but that’s the way life is.  He had a child, a wife and a job.  These things were his life.15

This time as he entered the house, his wife began to weep.  “I can’t do this any more,” she sobs.  He tries to comfort her, but she does not want anything to do with him.  “You smell like you’ve been swimming in that plant.  I can’t stand it any more Ted.  I can’t stand the smell of you. . .  The look of you. . .  Get away from me.  It’s driving me crazy.  Can’t you do something else?  Anything.  Just do something else!” She screams, running out of the kitchen.  He stands stung by the horror of what he has become to her: a monster, a stranger and a worker.16

He turns to his daughter who cringes as his haunting broomstick arms sweep toward her.  The acrid sour stench of chlorine from this Frankenstein was not the father she remembered, and she began to back away.  His voice was ominous and impersonal, “Come here!  Where do you think you’re going?”17

She bolted shrieking, “You’re not my father don’t touch me!”18

He stood frozen and alone.  Seeing the plate of food sitting on the table ready for him, he sits down.  The food enters his mouth unnoticed.  He stares at the brown wall and then he is standing at the brown treatment tank regulating the intake of chlorine. . .  He compares his hand to the blade of the blunt stake knife holding it - years of work, a useful tool, but repulsive to the touch.19