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Idle Hands

Stuart K Calderwood

    “You put these pellets in the hole, press the green button and out comes this plastic thing at the end. I don’t know what it is. Don’t worry about the buzzer, or the crushing sound, just keep throwing them in that cart. I want a hundred parts by tea break, whatever they may be, don’t ask, time will fly by, you’ll see.”
    But in truth time does not go fast. Each minute, coated in plastic, round as a bullet is unconnected to the last. Each hour is unconnected to the rest of life: your book at home, the fragrant cricket field, the family dinner table.
    “Come on lad, it’s better than homework,” the man says. “You could be watching Leeds play!” He laughs.
    It doesn’t help to compare different things to other indifferent things, I think, today.
    I make my quota, drink some rancid tea and watch the boys my age strutting around, showing off:
    “He’s a good lad, he is,” the men say about one of them, “he’ll go far.”
    A girl with bleach-blonde hair and pantomime makeup stares at the timecards, watched by the manager, sneering under the hat he never takes off.
    He whispers:
    “Little Susan’s got knocked up, married next weekend, before the nipper comes along.”
    “Her mum’s incandescent, dad’s fit to be tied.”
    She smiles radiantly, soon to be a bride.
    After lunch they all file back, a sour smell of beer, the girl’s mysterious smile.
     The manager’s face is collapsed into a leer.
    “I want a hundred more of them before you knock off; time’s money, idle hands make rubber bands,” he says.
    The buzzer calls the end of shift. Machines subside, coats on in the silence, each one makes his way home to unfolding life: her book, his pint, a visit to the dogs.

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