Short Stories WR Woodbury

  "Can you come in this afternoon to help out?" It was the dispatcher at the courier service where I had applied to be a driver.  I jumped at the chance to get my foot in the door because it would put me on the call list.  When I got there, the dispatcher told me that I would not be driving that afternoon but would be accompanying another driver on a delivery to a town a couple of hours north. The truck was already loaded, and I had not been told what mysterious cargo we had on board.  The dispatcher could have sent one of the other drivers along as a swamper, but it was only an hour until quitting time.  We would have to wait at the delivery location until we were unloaded and some items to be returned were on board.    I was introduced to Alec, the driver I would accompany, and shook hands with him.  When he said, "Welcome to the wavy train, bud," I wasn't sure exactly what he meant.  He was wearing saggy cargo shorts, scuffed running shoes...

"Hello!  Ludmila Feodorovna?  Hello?" a man's voice called. "Is anyone home?  Ludmila Feodorovna?  Can we speak to you?" It was probably a man from the Kyiv Oblast Social Fund checking that Ludmila was still alive.  They'd be only too happy to stop her widow's pension and leave her son Vasya with just his tiny disability payment to live on.  She'd fought hard for that, but it was so meagre it would not be enough to feed him if she died.  She pushed aside the rolled-up rags that kept the cold wind from whistling under the plywood door and unbolted the top and bottom locks, opening it a crack but leaving the safety chain attached.  There were bandits around who could kick their way in, but if they started, she should have a chance to get out of the mud-room and back inside the stronger main door.  Through the crack of daylight, she could see a handsome young man with blonde hair and blue eyes, but Ludmila had learned in her long life not to be ...

While the rest of the group waited for the professor, Vladimir squeezed through a crack in the corner of the room and launched into his usual rant.  "Fleas of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose but your chains!" "Give it a rest, Vladimir," Foo Chow said.  "We'd do something if we could." Foo Chow was right.  There was no way out of work.  When the professor was ready to open the show and send them onto the stage, they had no choice but to do as he wished.  The worst off were the newest members who were assigned to the orchestra because they wore copper collars, not the gold ones of the principal performers.  The orchestra members were attached to a metal plate that was connected to a power supply. As their tunes played, the hotter the plate got, the more energetically they gyrated, and the deeper the copper collars cut into their necks.  If they survived a month, they might be assigned a role in the main show.  At least the professor ...