"Why are ya here?"
I looked past those metallic barriers. The stars had finally collided, the fury came down upon us like a sliver of madness we reaped.
Looking at the ground outside, I could see the reflection of the sky above looming over us all like an awning, a cage. It rained down dust that would soon turn to blackened ash.
I knew better than to look up, which was why the stories I saw and what really happened were muddied replications of what really happened.
The dye on my hair had gone soft, maybe my heart did too. That mourning face of his wouldn't allow me to say anything. I had gotten everything wrong already, so what else was one more thing to be wrong about.
It wasn't him, it wasn't his fault. I could feel the breeze through the gaps of wound up barriers, only then did I realize then that the blackened ash came from myself.
We watched the shadows move around the warehouse, but there was a shadow that only I could see next to me.
It moved around like a flicker in the stars, the static that followed me throughout life, the static that covered everyone's faces from my sight.
"Look, ya needa get outta here." His eyes were a mess that I couldn't decipher. I couldn't focus on them, so I focused on the being that couldn't leave my sight. "Tell Victor it's all done, that I'll just handle things from down here, okay? God, where even is he when ya need him. Hey, are ya listening?"
I shook my head around. "I got a job to do here, just like you."
He rose up from the concrete, I watched him rise from my vision. He looked back and forth, I grabbed his coat before he could take a step.
"Can't you just once listen to me, Arlo?" I let go of that black coat of his once I saw his posture stiffen up. He didn't look back at me. "You're chasing ghosts, what, do you wanna end up like him so badly?"
"Im fixing things." He turned back and scoffed, his mouth twisted into this sour expression that made me sick.
My eyebrows curved upwards, I wanted to hit him, smack him, and just pull him out of there.
"What. What are you fixing? It's all over, everything's over, we can't stay here."
But most of all, I just didn't want to be left alone. I wanted to protect him as funny as that was.
His expression turned to one that carried no meaning behind it. He looked past me, past the warehouse, past the crates, past the railway, past the fence, past the moon and the stars. Yet he was looking at something that was so close yet futile.
"That." He said. "Whatever this all is."
One step. Then two.
I pursed my lips.
A horn whistled three times, I could see steam up in the sky, then I could hear the tracks rattling.
I scratched the back of my neck, and grabbed a couple of things I brought in; a good old nail file, some cloth, and a wrench. I stuffed them into my coat pocket and headed up those metal stairs onto the catwalk.
The walls were narrow and steaming, lots of thumping pipes sprawled on the ceiling and walls like messy tunnels.
I tapped the glass lightly with my knuckle, the needle didn't move, but the pipe was vibrating.
"Let's be nice today," I muttered under my breath.
I took my wrench and clamped it around the nut under the gauge and turned it over to the left, it got a little stuck so I had to put in a bit of effort.
One foot against the pipe; I pushed my entire body to the left. When that didn't work I stopped crouching and went for a full on lean, until finally, it opened.
I wiped my hands on my coat from the black grease that sputtered over my hands, the tube was clogged again, I got out the nail file and scraped it out gently. When the pressure shifted deep within the pipe, I tapped the little pivot from inside the gauge, it twitched, and I put everything back the way I found it.
It was a cheap fix, a temporary one.
Kuroda's chair squeaked even closer; how he expected someone who couldn't even tell what was right in front of them ceased to make sense, why I was speaking ceased to make sense.
"The shipments had gone missing, someone must've forged some fake names or something because now, out of the forty shipments ordered only fifteen showed up. The supplier was keen on saying that they'd already picked up the other ten earlier. So, now they're short. That type of stuff causes paranoia and… stuff."
Truth was subjective, he was asking the wrong person about all of this.
"Laurent's death screwed things up even more, the group down North moved in and started showing up with new jobs, better pay, the type of things that outweigh loyalty in a broken group. The same mistakes kept happening, a lot of mix ups. But people don't like mistakes, or things they think are mistakes, people want perfection in a life as shallow as theirs. They start tearing and fighting amongst themselves, all while picking up the leftovers for themselves."
But I spoke, and I kept speaking.
"You wanna know what I saw? I saw a broken bridge, it's kind of obvious when you think about it logically, but you think people listen to logic? No, they listen to themselves and what everybody else around them is saying. A broken bridge means a broken route; now you gotta share one, then that gives what's called a broken sense of pride, then everybody is watching each other so now you better watch your back too, then they start flinching over shadows—a threat, then you start thinking someone's trying to send you a message. So, obviously the logical answer is to start sending some back."
I looked at the forest with a drifting gaze.
Arlo's boots clacked on and off the asphalt, he no longer had to wear a disguise; with me, or them.
Those leather boots fit him perfectly, the ones that'd always been a size or two big on him, now tailored to fit him and the job.
A flatbed truck with wooden fences along the sides drove into the lot, the bottom part of the warehouse. It had this beige tarp, a blanket, covering up a bunch of wooden crates in the back. It was time for me to go.
"I was just out there minding my own business, I mean who the hell would wanna get involved in that typa stuff."
I peeled out a slice of the orange in my hands, and placed it into my mouth.
"And bam."