Scorched (2023)

This is a story I was commissioned to write for Connor Dobbin's 2023 zine, Scorched. I was given the prompt "write about working at a factory"

(pic is me, by Connor Dobbin)

SCORCHED

I don’t believe in heaven, but I do believe in hell. I go to hell for eight hours everyday. If you think your 9 to 5 email job is hell, then go to hell and get back to me; I work at a factory. We make fiberglass exhausts.

I’m in hell right now. I am staring at a clock.

What is hell? The Christian definition doesn’t suffice. Hell isn’t a place you go after you die. Hell is a clock. I look at a clock and I want time to be over. Wanting time to be over and wanting to die are two distinct desires. Death is natural. Ending time, for everyone and everything, is not. No one should want time to end; The desire isn’t fucking natural. If no one had invented the clock, no one would want ~this~ to be over. Who invented the fucking clock anyways? Could someone go back in time and take that mf out? Honestly, sometimes, I think that the only useful human invention was the eraser. Actually, I don’t think we’ve invented it yet- The Eraser. Fires are sort of like erasers, when used destructively. Wait. Wasn’t fire, like, the first invention? It was all downstream after that… You can’t make a fiberglass exhaust without fire. Is that when we invented hell, with the first fire?

Interesting how our first invention came with a kill switch. With fire, you can either fuse two things together, or you can incinerate two things and turn them into no-thing. Every invention has two directions; There’s create mode and destroy mode; But there is only an illusion of choice between these two directions, because, ultimately, either movement will have an equal and opposite reaction. Both addition and subtraction are unifying. Even if we learn to pay backwards attention, the result is always the same, because as soon as we invented time, we invented an ending. Ever since we learned how to read, to read time, to absorb plotlines from left to right, we’ve been progressing backwards, hurtling toward an end, an end which we crave. We manufactured this craving. This craving isn’t natural. There was a time when things didn’t end, because they didn’t need to; But nobody can remember that amorphous era because nobody, at the time, knew how to read or write. Nobody, at the time, knew what time was, or had any instinct to look back.

I look back at the clock. Right now, in the factory, I crave that ending, knowing full well that it isn’t natural. When I look at the clock and resent the remnant hours of my shift, it isn’t death I crave, but extinction. Having a job in the middle of the seventh and final extinction event, when the world is setting itself ablaze- isn’t that… weird? Every shift, I think these thoughts and I give myself the creeps. It’s ninety-five fucking degrees, no ac, and yet, I keep shivering and I know that it’s not the weather, it’s the creeps.

I am different because I create; This is my sole consolation when I am at work. Nobody here knows that I am a photographer, except Claire. I take pictures of Claire. She is, by far, the prettiest girl in the factory. Claire wants to model. She’s open about her aspirations, much to her detriment. Our co-workers, the older ones, snicker at her. The brutal truth is this; Claire is beautiful within the context of the factory, but beautiful, only by juxtaposition.

I am different because I create. I am different because I want to create something beautiful. Some people are born with the instinct to replicate what is beautiful. We are rare. My coworkers do not share this instinct. Instead of creating, they channel all of their libidinal energy into bitterness and jealous scheming. Claire is the exception- Except, she has the desire to be replicated. Claire has an erotic aura. If you wish to have an aura of eroticism, you only have to desire to be replicated and the desire will ooze out of your pores and express itself, invisibly.

I have an instinct to identify what is beautiful and to replicate it. The instinct itself is beautiful. All that is beautiful deserves to be replicated. I deserve to be replicated. I deserve it. I desire it. My desire to be replicated communicates itself, invisibly. It is this invisible desirability that makes me the target of my co-workers’ snickering. They snicker out of fear. Subconsciously, they sense social-Darwinian competition. Deep down, they know that, when competing with an aesthete or a beautiful person, they will lose. However, the average ego isn’t strong enough to acknowledge this, so their subconscious filters out thoughts of inferiority, keeping them ignorant. When faced with beauty they can only babble “Huh? Huh? Wha?” Because beautiful people are beyond their comprehension. If they tried to dissect an erotic aura, their egos might literally combust. All they can do is snicker; And all I can do is understand that they don’t understand. I try to be as compassionate as possible to my co-workers, which only mystifies them further.

Factories are not beautiful; And yet, they are centers of replication. Fiberglass exhausts are un-beautiful, and yet, we mass produce them. Mass replication of the un-beautiful is perverse- evil, even. Why do we do it? What the fuck is wrong with people? What is the opposite of replication? What is an un-factory? I’d like to invent an un-factory of disassemblers to un-replicate all of this ugly machinery. I’d like to set shit on fire. Fire is beautiful. Everyone glows magnificently under flame-light. Sunlight, on the other hand, will expose your flaws. I can make an ugly thing beautiful by setting it on fire.

I have telekinesis. I have telekinesis. I have telekinesis. If I say a sentence three times, outloud, in my head, it will manifest itself; If I fixate on an object, I can make it combust; These are the laws of the universe; I can’t make this shit up.

If I space out hard enough, during my shift, I can really see the flames. The clock just combusted.

I tell Claire that she’s on fire. She smiles. She thinks I’m flirting. I’m not flirting, but it is better for her to think that than to know the truth (flames are devouring her.) Claire thinks that I want to replicate with her. Maybe it is best that she thinks that. Maybe I do. Under the flame-light, she looks beautiful. It puts her acne scars in the shadows, unifies her skin with a honey-colored glow.

“I want to invent an un-factory,” I say, my voice quivering, (the flames are eating at her hair.)

“Oh? What would that entail?” Claire smiles.

“Uhh. We uhh disassemble things. Or dissect organic matter. Uhhh. Like, I dunno. Uh, frogs. Or uhhhhhhhhhh”

“Frogs?”

“Yeah, uhhh. Frogs. Or, like, uhh, baby pigs, maybe.”

Claire’s skin changes texture under the heat. Her falsely-smooth matte foundation hardens into char. I retch a little.

“I uhhhh, I got to go…Haha.”

Claire raises her eyebrows, just as they singe off.

I dart towards the bathroom. Linda, my supervisor, stops me.

Linda looks like Genesis P Orridge. I tried to compliment her once by telling her so. Obviously, Linda had no idea who Genesis P Orridge was, so I pulled up google images. She didn’t see the resemblance. Ever since then, Linda has had it out for me.

“You have 15 minutes left of your shift. I’m sure your youthful-young bladder can hold it in,” Linda says.

There are flames reflecting in the blacks of her pupils. I finally recognize Linda for what she truly resembles- not Genesis P Orridge, but the devil.

I walk back to my station.

Behind me, Claire chuckles. “Youthful-young bladder?”

I don’t look at Claire. I smell burning flesh. I try not to breathe. I can’t not breathe for fifteen minutes. In my head, I try to calculate how many times I can say fifteen in fifteen minutes. If saying fifteen takes a second, then fifteen times sixty is nine hundred. Saying ‘fifteen’ isn’t precisely a second. It’s probably less, depending on how fast you say it. That’s another factor. I don’t know if I can say fifteen at exactly the same speed each time. Variations are inevitable, unless I record my voice. Fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, etc. The number disintegrates into a word, which disintegrates into pure sound. You can’t escape time by counting, I’ve discovered; But you can escape time by repeating a single number infinitely. This is how you exit hell: fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, etc.

The bell rings. The clock un-combusts. Claire, with her hair and skin intact, looks astonishingly less beautiful. My desire to replicate her has gone extinct. I take off my blue plastic work uniform and slip on my hoodie. Nobody knows this, shhhh, but my hoodie is Margiela. Nobody knows this, shhhh, but my paint-splattered jeans are archival Helmut Lang, from the 90s. Nobody knows and nobody cares. This gives me a singular, private delight.

I walk out of the building, in sync with Claire. The sky is ghoulish purple. The clouds are black. A Halloween sky; It’s late july. It must be Halloween. Claire is wearing an Exorcist II T-shirt.

“Do you want to go to the graveyard and get shit-faced?” She asks.

I stop. I say nothing. I pull my camera out of my backpack and take pictures of the sky.

Claire steps in front of the lens. She smiles.

“You’re insane,” I say.

“You can take pictures of me with just my bra on. I’ve got a new bra, one you’ve never seen before. It looks like sea shells. All glittery. Oh- and I’ve got these vampire teeth. Got them from one of those gumball machines at Hannaford’s.”

She sticks her tongue out, in front of the lens. I cringe.

“No,” I say, “You’re insane.”

“Why am I insane?”

“Because we’re 27, Claire. I don’t want to go to the cemetery. I don’t want to get shit-faced. If I wanted to get shit-faced, I would go to a bar, not the cemetery.”

I don’t want to get drunk with Claire, but I acquiesce. We go to a local goth bar called Wake the Dead.

In the factory, Claire is an object of fantasy. In the outside world, she doesn’t interest me. Claire is just another blue-haired girl waiting to be served a gin and tonic at Wake The Dead. Claire is every girl who dyed her hair blue in order to become more singular, winding up universal instead, blending further into neon homogeny.

She opens her blistered little mouth to speak. My glass fantasies crack.

I can’t afford for my fantasy to be fucked with. Not when I’m at a shift and six inches away from going ballistic and chopping off my own dick. It’s paradoxical, I know, but the only thing tethering my brain to reality is this slim fantasy; Not of fucking Claire, but of reinventing her.

At the bar, we sit across from each other at a small table. There’s a candle between us. As we wait for our drinks, neither of us speak. I pick up a napkin and start to shred it into little pieces. Claire watches as I blow the bits of paper into the candle. I smile at the candle as they burn.

Finally, Claire asks, “What are you doing?”

I don’t respond, instead, I repeat myself- “We’re 27, Claire. We’ve been legal drinking age for what? Six years? I don’t want to manufacture a false sense of taboo anymore. If taboos are your thing, go break a real one. Like, go fuck your twin sister. I don’t care. But drinking at the cemetery doesn’t do it for me anymore. It’s been lackluster for a minute. Everything’s been lackluster. Apart from self-immolation, I can’t think of a single thing that could sufficiently stimulate me right now. I’ve already tried every drug and every sex position, so what is the fucking point, Claire? There’s nothing new under the fucking sun. There’s only replication. Everything I create is a picture of something that already exists. I could take a picture of you, but I didn’t fucking make you. Not even you made you. So what is the fucking point?”

Claire looks down at her drink, stirs the ice cubes around with her straw. I continue to shred my napkin.

“I don’t know,” she says softly, “I think there’s plenty of newness, all of the time. People are always inventing new drugs and new sex positions. People reinvent themselves with every breath. Our brains our constantly re-wiring, and-”

“Not after twenty-five,” I add, “But, continue.”

“Our personalities are still malleable after twenty-five, just less so.”

“Yes, but nothing is really a novelty anymore.”

I blow a clump of larger-sized napkin fragments into the candle and watch the flame jump higher and higher.

“Seriously, why do you keep doing that?” Claire looks back at the bar, concernedly. “You’re going to get us kicked out. This is, like, autistic child behavior.”

I don’t respond. I just smile.

“Maybe you just need to travel,” Claire continues, “Travelling is stimulating. It’s healthier than drugs, sex, or- ” She glances down at the now-surging flame. “self-immolation.”

“I don’t need to travel to know that there’s nothing new under the sun. I don’t leave the country. I don’t have to. There are no more frontiers. Every place is the same, due to globalization. They play the same Drake song in every supermarket from Montreal to Vietnam. Everywhere is America. Everywhere is the internet. All of the culture on the internet is downstream from New York. Everyone in New York has been regurgitating the same pop art aesthetics for the past five decades. Name one subculture that isn’t derivative. You can’t! Because all of it is the same thing! There aren’t any differences! No borders, no outlines, no distinctions, no categories. There’s no difference between any two things, any infinite number of un-named things. It all blurs together. One giant unnamed mass grave. We may as well give up on language.”

“For someone who wants to give up on language, you seem to have a lot to say,” Claire scoffs.

“All of my emotions have boiled down to the same nebulous non-feeling,” I continue, “There’s no point in expressing it. There aren’t any words for it. I can only hope that, as soon as someone invents a word for it, this non-feeling will exorcize itself. There is no variety anymore, no disturbances. It’s as if variety multiplied itself exponentially, then killed itself. Now everything is the same thing.”

I sigh. Claire stares at her drink again. We’re both silent for a minute.

“Well, I’m moving to New York,” she declares.

“You’re leaving?” I ask, incredulous.

“I’m moving to New York, to experience newness, all of the time. I only wanted to get shitfaced at the cemetery as a tribute to all the other times we’ve done it. It would’ve been new, in spite of all the times we’ve done it, because it would’ve been the last time. It would’ve been different,” she says.

I take an enormous gulp of my whiskey sour, then slam the glass on the table.

“Well, good luck chasing novelty in New York, bitch. Why don’t you join the parade of hopelessly mid downtown clout whores? Seriously, I hope it finds you. Best of luck.”

“Thanks.”

Claire looks down at her empty drink.

“What are you even going to do in New York?”

“Model,” she nearly-whispers.

Claire’s voice is trembling with vulnerability. I order another drink, so as to not feel too guilty. I am not jealous, I tell myself, Claire simply needs a reality check.

“You’re twenty-seven, Claire,” I tell her.

“There are plenty of twenty-seven-year-old models.”

“Yeah. They started in their teens. You’re twenty-seven, Claire. You have blue hair. You’re five foot four-”

“Five foot six,” she interrupts, on the verge of tears.

“You really think you will just walk around New York and someone will just pick you out of the crowd and scout you? Go join the masses of beautiful people who all want the same thing. Do it. There’s no point. Even if you were to get scouted, you would still be dime a dozen. It won’t make you singular or unusual.”

“I have a babyface, an unusual one! A face that strangers stare at for unusually long.”

“Sure, age is subjective, but-” I start.

Claire is shaking and crying. I grimace slightly, feeling the guilt creep in.

“I’m going to close out now,” she declares, abruptly getting out of her chair.

“Wait.” Claire turns to leave. I grab her hand. “I know I sound harsh, but-”

“I thought you would support me! Nobody at the factory believes in what I’m capable of. I thought you were different! Turns out you’re just as bitter as the rest of them. Those nobodies! Those NPCs! Get your hand off me!”

She shakes my grip off her wrist.

“I’ll show you! All show all of them what Clarita is capable of!”

“Clarita?”

“My model name.”

“Jesus Christ. Maybe pick something different.”

“Do you know about Marilyn Monroe?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Jesus Christ, Claire. I mean, uh, Claire-eee-tah. Yeah I know who Marilyn fucking Monroe was.”

“Ok, well. They say, after she became famous, she could turn her glamor on and off, like a switch. She could switch from Marilyn back to Norma Jean Baker in an instant, without ever having to change her clothes or makeup. She could go to bars unrecognized, but the instant she wanted to be seen, she could simply switch on the facade. She has complete control over her glamourousness. So, who’s to say that I’m not like that as well? Maybe I simply haven’t switched myself on. Once I do, everyone will see it.”

“What is ‘It?’”

“The novelty of me. My eternal newness of life. This new me that’s entirely of my own invention.”

I watch as she stumbles towards the bar. That’s when I see it- Her singularity. Clairita switches on. She illuminates, turning into a fiery angel-demon of newness and light. Like a fly drawn to a candle, I have no choice but to pull my camera out of the bag and pin her down in this instant. Suddenly, I don’t doubt her potential.