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Polish, Dust and Sparkle
Brian S. Wheeler
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2014 by Brian S. Wheeler
Polish, Dust and Sparkle
Contents
Chapter 1 – Desired Glow and Unwanted Reflection
Chapter 2 – Lookers, Stunners and Shiners
Chapter 3 – The Secret of Success
Chapter 4 – Glass Wielded as a Weapon
Chapter 5 – Buffalo Dance
Chapter 6 – Like Nothing Imagined
Chapter 7 – Hunting the White Buffalo
Chapter 8 – Worshipping Reflection
Help Spread the Story Across the Flatland
About the Writer
Other Stories at Flatland Fiction
Chapter 1 – Desired Glow and Unwanted Reflection
“A sunny day to you, sir. I say, a very sunny day to you indeed.”
The lift man held out his hand. His fingers were smooth, unmarred by blister, callous or scar. Such smooth hands were only one reason why the polishers hated the lift men.
A polisher started his days very early, and Jack Mays could’ve used a few more hours of pleasant dreams before he stepped into his rubber, polisher boots and donned his slick polisher coat. The hour spent jostling upon the public tram to reach the district of the tall, glass towers did little to shake him from his sleep. Jack was very tired. For a moment, he almost thought that the lift man might simply perform a lift man’s duty, might exercise the job for which he was employed without games and excuses. For a moment, Jack had forgotten that there was no such thing as an honest lift man. For a moment, Jack worried his sleepy mind had that morning forgotten to grab the coin a lift man’s toll demanded when he left his apartment to travel to the glass towers.
The polishers behind Jack grumbled as he scrounged through his pocket. Jack squinted at the lift man who he had never before seen.
“That’s a fine coat draped about your shoulders,” Jack growled as his fingers felt the cool, silver coins in his pocket. “I bet it’s the softest of goose down. I bet it’s nice and warm as you go up and down these glass towers. Nice, fine coat you’re wearing for a typical lift man.”
The lift man frowned, and there was a snarl in his voice when he responded. “I say again, sir, it’s a fine, sunny day. The dust’s very quiet this morning.”
Jack tossed the silver coin, and the lift man’s smooth hand flashed forward and snatched the bauble out of the air. Jack hoped the lift man choked on that piece of silver. Jack suspected the lift man would hardly remember any polisher’s face who tossed him a silver coin. Jack doubted the lift man would lose a minute of sleep for charging all those polishers that extra toll to ride his lift up the towers’ glass walls.
Though Jack had granted the man his coin, the lift man still refused to open the gate to his lift. “I say, sir. It’s a very, very sunny day. A lift man has to help insure the polisher carries his safety equipment whenever he goes to mop all the glass.”
The polishers waiting for their turn to ride the lift again grumbled at Jack’s back. Jack cursed beneath his breath. He had remembered the coins for the lift man’s toll, but he had forgotten to grab his sunglasses. The polishers’ union code made sunglasses a mandatory item of equipment. On most days, the dust floated and choked the air, and a pair of sunglasses helped keep the particles out of a polisher’s eyes so that a polisher could focus on best cleaning the glass. The sunglasses were especially important on a sunny day, when the breezes calmed and allowed the dust to sleep quietly and still upon the landscape. The reflection of that sun off of the glass could blind a polisher, and a polisher, perched so high in his scaffolding, couldn’t afford a misstep because of the glare. Jack briefly considered demanding that the lift man take him up in his lift, sunglasses or not; but he refrained from doing so, for Jack couldn’t jeopardize attracting attention. Riding that lift to his waiting scaffold was all Jack required. Winning an argument with a lift man would gain him nothing.
“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten my sunglasses.”
The lift man grinned and opened his coat to show an inner lining teeming with sunglasses. “Oh, no need to worry, sir. I’ve a very wide selection. Certainly something here will feel comfortable upon your nose. Us lift men think the world of you polishers.”
“I don’t doubt that you all do,” Jack snorted. “I’ll take your least expensive pair.”
The lift man nodded. “A quality product all the same. That pair’s a nice bargain at fifteen shiners.”
“Are you serious? Fifteen shiners? I could pay for one thrill of a soft dance across the river for fifteen shiners.”
The lift man laughed. “Oh sir, imagine how burning your eyes by looking at all that polished glass would affect such a thrill.”
Jack shook his head and gave all of his shiners to the lift man, an amount well beyond the fifteen shiners the lift man requested for the sunglasses. Jack ignored the piece of tan masking tape that held the two lenses together as he set that bridge upon his nose. He reminded himself that he wouldn’t have to suffer such indignity much longer. At the bottom of the tower, it was best to make the lift man happy, for a polisher needed to reach his glass.
The lift man chuckled upon accepting Jack’s coin. “How high up do you need me to take you?”
Jack gasped. His eyes burned at the lift man. Where did the union find the dim sods they hired to operate the lifts? Had it been any other day, Jack would’ve throttled that lift man for asking such an asinine question. Any lift man who possessed a brain should never need to ask a polisher how high he needed to climb upon the glass towers.
“You tell me, lift man,” Jack growled in derision.
The lift man’s face flushed and flustered. “Pardon me?”
“What day is it?”<
br />
“It’s Thursday.”
“And what week of the month is it?”
“It’s the third week of the month.”
Jack nodded. The line of fellow polishers at his back mumbled and grumbled in their discontent. Jack felt a little sorry for the lift man, no matter that the lift man had taken so many of his coins. There would be trouble each time that lift man asked the polishers behind Jack’s back to sacrifice a coin for the unofficial toll. The polishers could stomach a lot from the lift men, and they could accept a lot of inconvenience from the union protocols and policy guidelines. But incompetence was something none of the polishers could swallow. The glass towers held no place for incompetence.
“All of us polishers go up to a particular section on the glass towers each day, lift man.” Jack’s eyes smoldered. “Every day I polish just the right amount of shine. Never too little, and never too much. And the next day, I move along to the next spot. I never take a day off. You can keep a calendar by how us polishers move across these towers. Any lift man who’s worth his salary, certainly any lift man who demands a toll, knows the calendar of all of the polishers he lifts across the glass.”
The lift man’s lips trembled at the sight of the polishers glaring at him from behind Jack’s back. “I didn’t mean any offense, sir. I’m only new.”
Jack sighed and shook his head. He was so tired of the fools who filled his days.
“Oh, but you play all the lift man’s games – ask for a shiner toll, sell the cheap sunglasses. I’m not even going to ask for my toll back today, in spite of your ignorance. I don’t think you’re going to collect another coin from the polishers behind me, so I hope you stretch my coin out real far, lift man. So maybe I feel a little sad for you. Take me to forty-seven up and seventeen across, and never ask me again how high I have to go.”
The lift man swallowed. “Forty-seven up?”
Jack winked and nodded.
“But that’s almost all the way to the top.”
“So it is, lift man. So it is.”
Jack chuckled to watch the lift man’s hand shake when it pulled back the motor’s lever to start the cage’s ascent along the glass tower. Though he wore dark shades, Jack thought the lift man’s face turned very green. He wondered if his own face had turned so green on his first ascent up those towers so long ago, when he was something between a boy and a man, before he had ever visited the Crystal Palace across the river to experience the thrill that surrounded those dancing girls. Jack didn’t try to count all the years at his back, and he didn’t worry about years ahead of him. All that mattered was that he was going to the very top. He wouldn’t let nostalgia make him feel any heavier in that ascending cage.
The lift man’s knees knocked together with the first gale of wind to rock their cage. The dust would roll in if that wind continued, and Jack thought the lift man would regret wearing such a fine coat when all the dust kicked up into a windstorm that scraped and gnawed at the lift man’s bones.
Jack showed the lift man a little mercy and turned his sight away from the trembling lift operator to gaze out over the river, towards that flat, barren land that was the origin of the dust. The brown river, equal parts water and silt, snaked far below. The cage lifted Jack high enough to provide him a clear view to the river’s far show, where the pink Crystal Palace stood in the middle of a gravel parking lot. The Palace would be locking its doors as Jack lifted higher and higher, and its stunning girls would be counting all of the shiners their dancing gathered during the night. Jack had very often been accused of gripping his shiners too tightly, but he never regretted tossing a shiner to one of the Palace’s girls. He would miss little among all those glass towers, but he would miss the Crystal Palace.
Jack peered upward through the cage to gauge how high he still needed to rise. “Easy on the lever, lift man. My stop will be here after a few more floors. Best to slow a little now rather than come to a sudden stop at the top if you don’t want to rock the platform any more than you must. You wouldn’t want to vomit on all the polishers waiting below for their ride.”
The lift man tried to slow the cage, but it still jerked and rattled upon reaching Jack’s destination, for the inexperienced lift man’s hands remained heavy at the controls. Jack paid no attention to the sway. A polisher quickly acclimated to the heights to earn a living cleaning the towers’ glass. The lift man, however, held his breath, and his face turned a brighter shade of green.
“Something wrong?”
The lift man slowly shook his head. “Nothing that won’t pass in a moment.”
Jack winked. “A lift man’s time is a polisher’s money, son.”
The lift man pushed forward another lever, and the cage moved slowly across the glass tower. Jack whistled as he looked upon the dust gathered upon the tower’s glass. The cage moved into his day’s section, and Jack grimaced to see the amount of grime that collected since he had last worked that section of tower in his cleaning cycle. There seemed to be more dust than ever, and the men of the tight suits and narrow ties who owned those towers kept demanding that their spires be kept cleaner and cleaner. And if a polisher couldn’t keep pace with the dust, then a polisher could easily be replaced.
The lift man held out his hand once the cage settled at Jack’s scaffolding. But Jack didn’t offer another shiner. Let the lift man brood about it all day. Let the lift man hold a grudge. Jack wouldn’t need the lift man’s services any longer.
He had ridden that cage up the tower so many times, and Jack didn’t bother to strap himself into the scaffolding anymore. He had spent too many days staring at his reflection in the tower’s glass. He didn’t like the thought of leaving his glass so dusty. So while Jack realized he wouldn’t survive long enough to see his next polisher paycheck, he again grabbed the long, polisher mop. He dumped it into a bucket of suds and water before he scrubbed his mop once more across the dirty glass as had been his duty and custom for so many of his years.
It was indeed a very sunny day, and the dust remained very quiet. The reflection of that light off of the polished glass pained his eyes, for the sunglasses that bridged his nose were not of a very high quality. So Jack closed his eyes as he worked, and he let his memory drift to that night when he had realized how he would escape a world filled with too many reflections.
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