Fiction

    Four thirty came quickly for Stewart. He'd started sweating a little bit despite the cold of the office and the thought of walking into Uperman's office made him a bit sick, filling his eyes and head with a watery pressure. About the time his nerves started to eat away at his thought Barrowker called him and told him to drop the faxes off at Uperman's.

The morning had been slow and constant. No phone calls or e-mails came from Barrowker's office and Fred and Stewart both worked hunched over and quiet. Now and again the wind would slam into the portable and the walls would seem to stretch and lean. Each time Stewart would worry that the thing might flip over. When lunch time came Stewart and Fred both got up, first Fred then Stewart as always so as to avoid collision and punched their time cards before stepping out. The punch was mounted next to the door and had only three cards at it with an always-empty slot for one more. Stewart often would imagine that one day he’d show up to find a third desk crammed into the portable next to his and Fred’s.
Outside it had only gotten darker than the morning but the wind had died down to an occasional gust here and there running wild and crashing into the little portable. Stewart had just started to light up a cigarette when it began to rain, big grape drops that made the air thick. He scrambled along side the portable to the end where a little awning jutted out about 2 feet from the roof's edge and ran along for about 5 ft down the side before the portable ended. Underneath was a small weather-worn grey wood bench. The arms and seat had been smoothed by rain and hands. Fred was already there rolling a cigarette. A big bag of tobacco sat opened in his lap. Stewart squished in next to Fred and both of them were just protected from the rain.

Uperman's shipyard ran east along the nothern part of the Midtown coast that bordered the ocean. After a good stretch the coast and shipyard turn south for a bit more before rising into sheer rock cliff, too jagged and high for any ports. Old Midtown starts where the borders of the sandy coast meet the start of the rock cliffs. Most of the coast that was sandy beach in Metropolis sits dominated by the shadows of the ports that feed Uperman's shipyard. Nobody went to the ocean's edge to bathe or swim or anything else. Uperman's ports never held any local fisherman, only sailors from the north or east in for the night on older ships, but that was rare. Most of the freight ships were completely automated and didn't need any more than two or three to the crew. Most of the time the little crew would never leave the boat but instead stayed on board in their cabin. It didn't make any difference to Stewart who never saw any of the ships or the sailors. Stewart worked in the yard in a little corragated aluminum metal shed of a portable. A long time ago the orignal Uperman had set up a system for the shipyard that divided the whole thing into sections. Each section of the shipyard had a little portable office with the assigned personel to run it. Stewart's Section was called the East 101, which he never understood since his section was the furthest northwest in the yard, closest to Uperman's Adminstrative office where Uperman himself sat everyday atop the fifth floor in an office that overlooked the yard.

Boyd and Eric hadn't talked after last week's time machine accident. Boyd still blamed Eric for the loss of his ring finger and Eric was still bald from the massive fire ball. Either way both had taken a vow of silence against the other and a word hadn't been spoken since. Not even to the dog, who had nothing to do with the whole time machine thing but who Boyd also blamed for his finger. They would have probably continued their little quiet treatment fight indefinitely, the previous record was 5 months a week and a day (Eric lost although he was on fire at the time), if Boyd hadn't come to the couch one day with a rather disgusting looking rash. Under his shirt collar you could see it, seperate large purple welt boil looking things.

"Don't touch me." Said Eric as Boyd sat on the couch to watch TV.

"You broke the silence man! You talked first which means I'm right." Boyd shouted

"Does not. It does not Boyd. It means I don't want your rash hands or any other part of your rash body to touch my unfestered skin." Boyd held up his finger or rather what should have been is finger.

"Oh to shit with your finger Boyd. It wasn't my fault!"

"Who had the hedge clippers? Was it you Eric? Was that you with the hedge clippers?"

Eric slumped back into the couch in anger and tried to stare a hole into the TV, or it to make it explode, or whatever so long as he didn't look at Boyd. Boyd did the same.

"It itches." Boyd said after only a few minutes of quiet "It itches but not on the outside. On the inside."

"It looks awful Boyd. Is it every where?"

"Just about. It came on just last night. I took a shower yesterday and the only spots I had were the ones on my ass I've always had and then this morning I was covered in this horrible crap." Boyd began to scratch and Eric shirked away a bit.

     Stewart walked at a quick pace, slanted against the wind that came down from the north east. A front had pushed in over night and left the morning sky with a short ceiling of dark clouds that kept the sunlight stone-grey. Every so often a drop or two of rain would land on Stewart but not so much as to be a bother on his walk to work. Not as much as the wind which came in waves thick and cold, and in gusts so strong he had to lean forward or else he'd fall over. Twice now he'd nearly lost his hat and he kept his left hand pressed hard against it lest a third time should take it away with an unexpected gust. In his right hand was a black briefcase which he held in front of his stomach trying to keep his dark brown coat from flying off. Every so often a low torrent of wind, creeping along the ground and throwing dirt in his shoes would hike up his brown slacks to show little brown socked ankles and the start of a pale leg. He hummed a tune despite the wind and was thinking of his work that day. His thoughts though, the ones he pictured this morning anyway, were only distraction away from his desire. He didn't care to think of work either at or outside of it and was not the type to plan his day, as it hardly ever needed any planning by his hand, being mostly lined out for him already. Anytime he thought of work he was really thinking of Emily and hoping that the fax machine for Mr. Upermann's office would break. But not blatantly, not to himself anyway. He'd never dare think of her directly but found ways instead to think of everything else at work. Today was no different and as he thought of all the insertion orders and invoice counts and receipt tickets he'd have to deal with he really thought of Emily, and he hummed.