Grey Machines
Dark eyes, round jaws, and dirty complexations from factory work, like his face. They seem here and there, somewhere else, somewhere familiar, like remembering a former life that has come and gone.
Industry, heat, fire, flames: all with short life expectancy for The Nephew and the other workers, comrades in the Soviet Union, toiling away for their wages. The grey machines groan and churn out production quotas to meet official demands, faces never seen by the workers, only spoken of by stoic supervisors, smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking poor vodka like everyone else. The labor has been monotonous, clearly driven by repetition and dull expectations, no different from the industrial scenery of glumness and sapped spirits. Workers like The Nephew drink and smoke, looking for the same tomorrow, living in an indentured present, serving their Soviet masters, yet in these days of drudgery, small talks or curious conversations ferment, like with the fellow Mongolian, who introduced him to some other workers: one a Korean who hails from Central Asia, one a Mongolian who dreamed of returning to the wild steppes, and one an Afghani, who sought a better life in Soviet Russia. They all more or less have the same face.
Dark eyes, round jaws, and dirty complexations from factory work, like his face. They seem here and there, somewhere else, somewhere familiar, like remembering a former life that has come and gone. Nevertheless, speaking to one another, they slip between Russian and Mongolian, one a common language, the other reserved for his fellow countrymen. Over meals and before rest, they talk about themselves, each one carrying their sack of memories. The Korean comes from a relocated household, forcibly moved to Central Asia, and expected to comprehend completely foreign cultures. The Afghani fled tribalism, ripping his community to pieces, escaping the worst, and, so far, finding something better. He found peace.
The Mongolians, like The Nephew, do not come from the same place, but different places, some bordering dissimilar places. The one with the black teeth comes from the capital, while the stary-eyed one comes from someplace remote, in the wild steppes by a great desert, growing larger. The Nephew has never heard of this place, though his uncle has told him about the Gobi Desert, a vast desert that was well known for the Silk Road, used during the height of Mongol power. But time, like a desert, came to consume such power and leave behind reality, their current reality, something without glory or nostalgia, only grey machines. Industry has conquered them.
When The Nephew sleeps, aware that he should never get too comfortable around strangers, even if those comrades from Eastern Europe offer cigarettes and smile thinly, he still dreams, yet not of fiction, but of fact. Conversations he had with his uncle, one being at home, inside a smoky room with noisy animals outside. It had a pungent, strong smell to it, something oily or musky, he would grimace after smelling it enough. But there he and his uncle would speak about past events and things that define their present. His uncle, a very educated person, stressed education over a life of labor and toil, as better opportunities emerge from having an education. The Nephew saw few opportunities to afford a higher education, which was his excuse.
It was an excuse to his uncle, not believing that The Nephew has found no options to pursue a better education, that he truly has exhausted all options. He didn't believe this excuse and was dismayed when The Nephew threw a future away, moreover a precious lifetime, for factory work. Every night, he recalls the disappointment on his uncle's face at such a decision, giving up. He will never make enough, a moot point made and repeated. He will never make enough money. The Nephew then wakes up and resumes his factory work, hearing abrasive sounds mixed with sweltering heat and hazardous tools utilized for constant production, meeting those fixed quotas. His uncle may have shown disappointment, but he offered little in providing help.
The Nephew catches the eye of a work supervisor who approaches him. He has a letter. From Uncle.
