Dopecentury XXXVIII --- Reinforcements
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: “the monotony rarely becomes tedious.”) My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these “Dopecentury” entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
Pass over this land of low rolling brown hills; follow the smoke that rises from the horizon; pick up the black river winding its way through the hills below, and follow it up the deep rift cut into the landscape; up to where the maze of black streets mark the edge of the small city that clings like a cancer to the deepest folds of the rift in the land; the modest homes and streets packed densely into the lowest and widest part of the rift, and the main roads leading up the rift to the highest point where the buildings of the processing plants hunkered around the entries to the shafts opened miles deep into the crust below; the black smoke rises slowly from the processing plants, up out of the rift high into the cold air above.
Thousands gather along the main roads that lead to the upper part of the rift; workers in clothes of leather, wool, and heavy canvas; clothing colored gray and black, laden with dust that puffs out in a cloud when a back is patted in friendship, or a fist driven in anger; lithe young men with belts of cracked leather pulled tight; stocky women with hair in thick braids; short people good at fitting into tight spaces; and huge giants with arms like ham hocks and bellies like the hills around who can lift immense weight without a second thought or hesitation;
They come at the sound of the whistle, which has been sounding from the processing plant in an unbroken screech for hours now; the short blasts of the whistle usually signal the beginning of ending of work; but with the un-ceasing call brings the workers, first from curiosity, and then by rumor, and then by righteous anger; the workers come and gather in groups, then crows, then masses, clumped and blocking the main roads up from the city, the roads to the processing plant and the shafts.
A tanker truck, with black grease streaking its side and black smoke pouring from flaming stacks above, climbs up the hill of one of the main roads in a low gear; the workers crowding the road part to let it pass, and as it goes past they cheer; torches are ignited and the torch-bearers follow behind the slowly climbing tanker truck, and the crowds of others in their dusty clothes and the waves of their varying heights fall in behind; and more cheers go up.
The truck reaches the entrance to the shafts that fall into the earth and hoses are connected and piped down into the shaft; the valves in the belly of the truck are opened, and the smell of petro-chemicals fills the air; some of the workers go down the shaft, and come up with cloths over their mouths, coughing up the burning chemical gasses; the truck rises on its suspension as the weight of its contents are offloaded down the shaft.
The torch bearer disappear into the shaft, and then come back out empty handed; within minutes thick acrid black smoke is falling upward out of the shaft entrance; soon flames streak from the entrance; the shaft has been set aflame and the fire will burn below the city for three-hundred years; the workers cheer.
A jet passes overhead, the sound tearing at the atmosphere behind it, and the workers on the ground below shake their fists at the passing threat above.
The fire in the shaft rages on, the people driven back from it by the heat, forming a loose semi-circle around; a brave young person, crouching low, gets up under the truck and disconnects the hoses leading into the shaft; she climbs into the cab and puts the truck in neutral and guides it back down the slope of the main road, the workers once against spreading apart to let it pass; she rides the brakes, keeping the speed down, and then throws the wheel over so the truck jack-knifes, slides until the sidewalls of the tires catch, and then truck rolls over on its side, slung across the full length of the main road.
The workers fall in behind the barricade, and bring up reinforcements for the barricade: heavy equipment, furniture, machinery and more vehicles; the barricade is made a jumbled pile of steel that rises to the roofs of the buildings on either side.
The workers arm themselves: pick handles and shovels, steel bars and broom handles; one person is opening wooden boxes of explosives and distributes them around the barricade, along with packs of cigarettes; a giant walks around with a jack hammer slung over his should claiming he will wield it like a mallet.
The workers take up their places on the barricade, lighting cigarettes and hefting their weapons; waiting and watching down the slope of the main road.
The National Guard comes rolling on up the valley rift, in armored vehicles: wheeled vehicles with light guns and infantry clinging to their sides, followed by heavy tanks with treads tearing up the asphalt of the road creaking along behind.
The vehicles come into sight of the barricade, and stop; the infantry drop down from the vehicles and take up covered positions behind; commanders examine the barricade from the roofs of the vehicles and, noticing the tanker truck on its side in the middle of the barricade, assess the possibility that the workers have created some kind of doomsday device: that if the barricade is fired on with heavy weaponry, it will set off an explosion that will destroy everything in the rift.
The possibility cannot be ignored; the barricade looks impenetrable, and like some kind of vision out of hell, with the thick smoke from the burning shaft filling the atmosphere behind the barricade; on consideration and coordination of the commanders on the front lines, the orders to take the barricade immediately are rescinded; a stalemate ensues.
The stalemate goes on and on for hours, the workers soon realize they are in fact under siege; the National Guard will wait them out; the worker realize they need reinforcements from the outside. But who would reinforce their cause? Other workers? Sympathetic politicians? The public in general? Who?