The urgent screeching of the alarm clock brought Alex back to consciousness at 6:00 AM.  She was in her bed, on the lumpy mattress that needed replacing. She reached over to the old nightstand and turned off the alarm.  Resolving to lay in the comfort of her bed, Alex took in her studio apartment. The gray painted walls bowed in places; and a large print of Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” concealed a thick crack in the plaster opposite the bed.  There was a cheap coffee table and an old couch, a bookshelf full of books she hadn’t read, a small refrigerator, an oven, a tv that didn’t work. A line of shoes on the floor. A closet stuffed full of clothes and storage boxes. Her mother’s cedar chest.  After lying awake for what seemed like too much time, she gathered the will to get up.

A dull but serious pain ached through her muscles and bones as soon as she put her weight on her feet, crawling up through her legs to her spine and torso.  She gritted her teeth and walked to the cabinet over the stove. After starting her coffee pot, Alex kicked off her pajamas and proceeded to the shower.

She noticed a new cut on her right forearm, and several tender purple bruises on her hips and legs.  Every morning brought new damage to her body. Bruises, cuts, scrapes, once or twice a missing tooth or fingernail.  She was lucky, though, she was still fit for duty, which meant she could pay her rent. Some people lost limbs or went mad and were turned out of the corporate municipality to die in the wilderness.  What were a few bruises compared to exile and death? Whatever work she did, it kept a roof over her head and food in her belly. Not remembering was probably a blessing.

The shower timer ran out and the water pressure died down.  Alex stepped out to dry off and gazed at herself in the mirror.  She had a black eye, and a busted lip. Maybe she had been in a fight?  Surely she would know if she had been in a fight–she would have been written up and given a slip.  She dressed herself–cheap bra and underwear, plain shirt, plain pants. Back in the kitchen Alex poured herself a cup of coffee and drank it black.  She toasted some bread and ate it. The clock read 6:40 AM. Elevator privilege for her floor ended at 7. She emptied the coffee pot, pulled on her socks and shoes, and exited her apartment, turning down the hallway toward the elevator.

Janice and Bill, from two apartments down, were also waiting at the elevator.  Janice was missing an eye and some teeth. Her nose was crooked from having been broken.  Bill, who looked big and strong, was missing several fingers and walked with a limp. It must have been very hard work they did.  The three were friends, though, and so they tried not to talk about work–what little they knew of it. They would meet on the elevator and ride to the sorting station together on the subway most days.  The corporation had declared the first and last days of every month to be a social holiday with no work for most workers, and Janice and Bill and Alex enjoyed cooking meals for each other when their holidays coincided.  Janice and Bill pretended not to notice Alex’s black eye, and Alex pretended not to notice the fresh scar on Bill’s face. They chatted about food and plans and getting older, anything but the elevator slowly rising up through the floors.

The elevator doors rolled open with a low ding and a rumble, and the trio stepped on board, fighting for space.  Alex hated fighting for space. She hated being trapped in the full-to-capacity elevator. She hated riding down to the sub-basement, and she hated having to fight for space on the subway cars that took them to the sorting station, where they would be induced and sent to work.  She focused on counting the seconds. If she controlled her pace, and didn’t let the anxiety of being trapped in a box with the entire floor get to her, the doors would open at around 750. The subway ride was a little bit faster, closer to ten minutes. Everyone was slightly maimed or disfigured, except for sometimes the young.  It must be very dangerous work. Janice, knowing how claustrophobic Alex was, held her hand throughout the journey.

After an eternity of being packed into tiny spaces with too many people, the subway arrives, and the doors open, and the crowd spills out.  The sorting station is clean–immaculate, really. Everything looks brand new, from the fences to the benches and the propaganda posters that line the walls.  Alex’s favorite was the “Keep your body healthy, keep the corpo healthy” posters with dietary and exercise information and first aid information. It was so colorful.  There were several different sorting lines, though it was never clear where any of them led. Some of the lines would be closed off after a certain number of people queued up, and so people would jockey for these more limited lines. Alex didn’t believe it mattered which line you got into, but Bill did.  He liked to stand back and watch how quickly the lines moved, what kinds of patterns there were in the headcounts, and how he felt–what kinds of injuries he had–after having stood in a given line the day before.  

Today, Bill picked one of the limited lines, and managed to get Janice and Alex in before they closed the line at 500 headcount.  They moved up more slowly than the unlimited lines, which Bill felt would land them gentler jobs. The painted white brick of the sorting station loomed large before them, with its multiple entrances and large portraits of the corporate board.  As they shuffled up the line, one by one going through the inducement machine, Alex prepared herself mentally for what was coming. She had no idea what kind of work she would be assigned to do or what kinds of injuries might result from it, she only knew she would have no memory of it.

They had passed inside the building.  Fans blew the air around so it was cool and breezy.  An oak desk sat in the entryway, unmanned, as the line formed up on one of the many inducement machines.  The inducement machine was more like a large room, or series of rooms, than a machine. Several people could go through at once, each in their own small inducement room, where a thin blue light will be shone into their eyes.  The moment this light is registered in their brains, the workers go blank. They will follow any command, and they will have no memory of anything that happens to them while under inducement, which lasts until they enter into a state of deep sleep.  Alex’s turn came up. She took a deep breath, and entered the room. After a few seconds, the light shone into her eyes, and she was out.

The urgent screeching of the alarm clock brought Alex back to consciousness at 6:00 AM.  She was in her bed, under the washed out and frayed comforter that needed replacing. She turned off the alarm and lay in the comfort of her bed for a few moments, taking in her studio apartment.  Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” with his beautiful hair and face concealed a thick crack in the bowing plaster opposite the bed. A dirty coffee cup sat on the table in front of the old couch. A rug on the floor in front of the stuffed-full closet.  Her mother’s cedar chest. The cross from over the doorway had fallen on the floor. Her coat draped over a chair. After lying awake for what seemed like too much time, she gathered the will to get up.