The Spam Factory

Looking through the spam section of my yahoo account, it struck me that the invented names of the junk email senders had a lot of character, so I thought I'd write a little bit about each of them, in a late night stream of consciousness sprawl of, well, junk, probably.
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Kathie Clifton had a headache. It began in her teeth, then spread as a tingle through her cheeks, coming to a halt in a clamp around her temples. The clunking and humming of machinery all around her wasn't helping.

"Are you ok?" asked Paul Stapleton, the paunchy, pasty man who worked next to her on the production line. "You look like you could use a nice lie down."

"Huhuhuhuhuhuh". Dale Wall, opposite and to the left of Kathie, took everything in a dirty way. "I bet," he said. "I'll bet she does."

"Shut up, Dale." Paul glowered. "Would you like some asprin?"

Kathie shook her head. What she really wanted was to win the lottery and never have to see any of these bastards again. The faces all along the production line were flesh ghosts. None of them were real. How could they be, among so much active, thrusting machinery? The machine was real, they were little puppets, dancing a Peter Crouch robotics routine. None of them had anything to offer - not Dale, not her, not Bud Geiger in accounts, or Regina Terry in IT.

The man everyone just knew as Geoffrey was sweeping up iron filings and keeping up his thankless cleaning routine. The factory was filthy and depressing.

"Shouldn't be allowed," said old, sad Alden Dodd, on Kathie's other side, grimacing at a large oil slick on the floor. "This day and age. There are rules about this sort of thing. Health and safety."

"We're not real," said Kathie. "It doesn't matter."

"What was that, dear?" Nice old Celia Burroughs craned over from the next-door conveyor belt, leaning her hunched old back as far as it would stretch, in case she was missing out on juicy stuff. Celia should've been spy, Kathie thought. One of those ultra deep-cover types, where they're so mild mannered and unassuming, that no one suspected they even had a life outside the context you see them in (in this case the factory, but you see Celias everywhere, hobbling around and nosing in people's tedious dirty laundry) never mind leading a double life of excitement and espionage.

Celia gave Kathie a vague look, as if she'd forgotten who she was for a moment, even as she tried to juice her for information.

"Nothing," said Kathie.

"That's nice dear," said Celia, going back to her own production line.

Carla Salazar, a few places further up the row, worked in silence. She was a mystery. Too beautiful for this kind of job, but maybe without enough English to get a better one.

Troy Greenberg was staring at Carla, Kathie noticed. He was slack-necked and old before his time. Only 35, maybe, but had the dried-out look of a man in his fifties. Riddling lines spread all over his face, mapping out late nights and twisted, perverted, debauched nights of...Kathie wasn't sure why she was reading him like this. He was probably a nice man. She never spoke to him in the tea room, but he always let her get to the sugar in a kind sort of way, stepping back to let her waddle in closer, without making her feel uncomfortable for being a "great big fatass" as her son liked to say. Kathie's son watched far too much American TV.

"At least I'm not out taking crack with hos," was his reply to accusations like that. Kathie had no idea whether he meant it as a serious attempt to imitate the MTV people, or whether he was playing with her ignorance of all things relating to the under 40s, trying to make her look stupid by mistaking irony for imitation.

Whyever am I thinking about Scott? she wondered. He's not part of the factory. Sometimes Kathie wondered if this place was sending her insane. It just kept coming.

"Henry, pass us that wrench!" someone was calling to someone at the other end of the factory. It was a miracle Kathie could hear it over the noise. Through the thumping of headache and machine and the twittery chatter of her co-workers, Kathie couldn't judge distance any more. Maybe Henry was nearby. She didn't know who he was. But he must have passed the wrench, as the request didn't come again. Or maybe it did, and she didn't hear it.

Kathie worked on, inserting one bit of metal into another, just like her training, just like her morning, afternoon and (on bad days when the world hated her and her manager circled her name on the chart) night shifts.

Yahir Phillips came and took over from Paul. It was a new shift, but Kathie was on for a double. She didn't mind now, she was into the rhythm. Yahir nodded to her and muttered something. Kathie didn't hear but didn't ask him to repeat it. She nodded too.

The faces along the line were changing. Valeria Law took her place solemnly, with her pinched in cheeks and poking out bones, 16 years old and gaunt as Kathie's old mum. Leather, her skin was like, but tight young leather, a rack of skin being stretched, ready for the coffin. Her overalls were the smallest, but too big. Probably a health hazard, having all that baggy material, thought Kathie. She didn't report Valeria though. The little bird boned girl scared her.

She was probably on drugs, and maybe under her overalls were a stash of needles, strapped about her waist in a belt of some kind, ready as weapons if anyone pissed her off. Kathie smiled. I'm turning into an old woman, thinking everyone young is out to get me and mug me, I'm turning into a tabloid even though I don't read the papers. The papers don't make us think things, it's all in your genes...get old, stop trusting people. Or not genes. It's in experience. I'm laughing at myself here, thinking badly of this girl. But I'm thinking badly of her because other ones just like her, with that same look, did bad things to me and to mine and especially to my kitchen window.

The manager came strolling by, with nothing to do but look and try and find a fault to justify him being there at all. Kathie thought he should just go back to his office for Sudoku. He was more likely to put people off their stride, prying about like that, than increase efficiency or whatnot. Mr Alec Richardson was a pointless part of the machine. He had nothing to say that was helpful. He was always there though, like a dormant virus, herpes ready to come back at the worst moment. He was an empty little man, Kathie thought. His eyes were holes. Pissholes in the snow, actually. White and red shiny face, boxy suit under his protective coat thing. He wandered off down the line, with no reason behind his actions but trying to look purposeful and thoughtful and full of authority like a real man not a pissweasel.

Conner Murphy came up behind Kathie and pinched her bum. "Goosey goosey," he snickered. Conner never made much sense. Kathie didn't turn round, just waved her hand behind her to get him away.

Hours more passed. Kathie's headache dissolved into the dozy numb state she got into by the second half of a double shift. Noise, noise, noise, like sleeping on a train with your neck awkward against the window.

She kept her eyes on the production line. She could just see hands. Hairy ones coming out of Rory Durham's sleeves. Little stubby ones on Gwen Lutz's fat wrists. Tiny child hands belonging to Mina, five places down.

They all worked on and on in the factory, and Kathie lost herself until it was time to go home.