If it wasn’t his feet aching, it was Ed’s left shoulder giving him fits. Standing on the factory-line floor of the molded plastics company with his safety goggles strapped to his head and an elastic arm brace Velcroed around his forearm, which didn’t help relieve the repetitive pain of reaching out with his left arm, he pulled the molder toward him, releasing the resin injection and then pulling out a perfectly new white plastic lawn chair. Releasing the weight of the molder machine with ease, over and over again, all day, every day took a toll on his joints. The only thing that changed was the color of the lawn chair. Today, it was white; tomorrow it might be dark evergreen. Ed preferred the white since the color didn’t transfer to his gloves throughout the day. The green ones made his gloves look like some landscape guy. He also preferred his title to be production personnel. It just seemed like a step up from landscape laborer.
Yet, despite the everyday pain caused by his job, he was worried that any day now, some new machine would come in and take his place, and it would. Only a matter of time, he thought, pressing his lips into a thin line. He was sure of it. Not that he had anything against mechanization; he just hoped they brought in the technology after he retired and not before.
From the glare of his safety goggles, in patriotic hues of blues and reds, the reflection of an emergency broadcast came from the breakroom television, a few yards past the yellow safety-line in front of him. When he looked up, several Easter-egg-hued hard hats were crowded around the television above them.
From his position, the headline read: EXPLOSIVES STOLEN. WHITE SUPREMACISTS SUSPECT…
“Bad idea, skinheads,” he mumbled and returned to work.
Then moans from the breakroom erupted and he turned his attention again to see what the commotion was about this time.
“Where’s the remote?” someone yelled from underneath a baby blue hardhat. “I can’t hear a damn thing.”
The remote was passed like a baton through the crowd to the requester and he pointed up at the television, increasing the volume with each click.
On the screen, a woman sweating in a dark blue wool suit with long blond hair shading the left side of her face said, “…killed in an ambush. Families are yet to be notified. The White Supremacists of Clark County are claiming responsibility.”
Cutting to the news desk, an anchor asked, “You mean they’re claiming that they’re responsible for killing thirty-two police officers while in a funeral procession, like a terrorist organization?”
The reporter moved a lock of hair away from the delicate structure of her face before the wind had a chance to malign her features again and said, “It appears so.”
“Thank you, Andrea,” the news anchor said. “It’s a sad day, indeed.”
“That was fast. Must have been an inside job,” Ed said to himself, turned back to his task at hand before the supervisor detected the distraction and noted the time left in his shift. Elated that there were only a few more hours before he was scheduled to head home, he mentally went through his freezer, picturing the labels on the sides of the blue boxes and their contents, debating between the one that read ‘Boneless Pork Ribs’ or the ‘Homestyle Meatloaf.’