Torpor by Catalina Berretta
It took years. It took reaching the edge, wanting to give up, giving up but returning to the task. Out of a sense of what? Duty? Responsibility? Guilt? Was it something that ran in her blood, so she could not escape it? Or maybe it was the insomnia that found her every night since the phone rang. The not knowing that kept her awake as she rested her bones against the hard cottage floor, a thin worn blanket beneath her. The pale wane of the moon and its dancing stars twinkling through the window, winking at her. Somewhere out there, there was someone else on the other side of the phone.
She remembers the day the phone rang.
It rang on a Tuesday at 3 o’clock. The sun had dipped slightly, the scorching heat of noon withering with the laziness of the afternoon. She was sitting in the shade room of the cottage. The sun room was impossible to be in during the day. Even within the shade’s room sealed doors and slow moving fans, sweat would drip down her back. She was counting her food packs. The sealed protein packs were the base food item that could be earned by a day’s work at the Factory. It was a joyless meal, sometimes wet, sometimes like grains of sand in her mouth. A double shift would earn her enough tokens for something more tasty but she could barely make it through one shift as it was. The exhaustion of two shifts welding metal always left her weak in her arms and thighs. If she appeared tired she could be reported to Physical Disability, which was not worth a few minutes of pleasure. Physical Disability meant restricted work hours and even less food. So one shift at a time it was, but her supervisor