literature

The Disintegration of Copper

Deviation Actions

Published: Oct 1, 2015

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Literature Text

You are twenty-one years old and used to bright lights and screaming. Flashbulbs practically flare at your face as you sashay the gleaming copper carpet, slowly so that you are able to work your best angles. A flick of one of your thick braids, a playful wink and a fleeting display of an engagement ring - not intentional, of course - and the crowd gasps and goes wild as security has to growl and push back those who attempt to come closer to you. You smile and wave a little; there is no time for hugs and autographs, not now anyway. The most important ceremony for cinematographic artists is about to begin and you are one of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress.

Later tonight, all broadcasts will be bursting with exhaustive, thorough, in-depth coverage of the ceremony. Who were the big winners of the night? Who were the losers? Who was best and worse dressed? Your fashion team had spent the last few months in preparations regarding that latter question. After weeks and weeks of poorly slept nights, frantic contacts and tons and tons of sketches, samples and photographs, they had come up with the most exquisite outfit: a golden corset, all sewn with intricate beak designs and continuing at the bottom with a lavish skirt composed of many layers, dark-brown and cream, along with a pair of high-heeled brass boots. But the most impressive element is the bronze plated cage, its bars growing like round bellies from your waist all the way up to one meter above your head, forming a tear-shaped contraption. Little swings hang from its top and, in those swings, mechanical birds jump and exchange places between themselves, lifting their delicate wired wings as their paths cross. The apparatus is just large enough so that it can contain all your hair - black nests of what appears to be unruly curly hair were, obviously, intentionally placed and planned to the tiniest detail. Finally, coming out from those masses of hair are four braids; two covering your shoulders and the other two falling from your back. The entire look is complemented with strong make-up: glitter on your eyelids, perfect foundation to conceal your blemishes, heavy eye-liner that is making your eyes look so feral and cat-like when in reality they are small and not very distinctive. Your fashion team had done a great job.

When you enter the famous Theater, there are already three people from your entourage inside. Their job is to remove the cage as swiftly as possible, which they achieve with relative ease after days of practicing the same gestures. After all, you cannot attend the ceremony while wearing such a creation - that would require you to sit in a special bench, all by yourself, insulated from all the other guests and hosts. The Theater does not accommodate such needs.

The ceremony begins with great splendor, to the sound of hundreds of applauses and cheers. The first host, winner of Best Actor seven years ago, is making people laugh and whistle. You tap your fingers on the armchair; it is a big coincidence. You find yourself softly sinking on the chair, nevermind your posture. There are some hours left and you have very little interest in following the jokes, the announcements, the speeches. You merely clap when everyone else is clapping, giggle when you instinctively sense the crowd is about to giggle. On the inside, you gradually immerse yourself in memories. It’s alright; it’s not like you are going to win anything this year. You already know that.

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You are fourteen years old and working full-time at the café near your grandparents’ house. At that age, your body is all grown-up and it’s a job that forces you to constantly dodge intrusive hands and ignore inappropriate remarks, but the pay is not bad, makes for barely enough savings so you know you can quit in maybe one year, two years tops and finally pursue those acting lessons you so eagerly wanted.

It is in this café that you meet Asim. He is a factory worker, one of the many many tiny gears that, put together, held the great engine which powered the entire nation. He comes almost everyday to your establishment, smiles easily, has a habit of scratching his tiny curls when nervous. He is perhaps twenty; you never think of asking, but presume. He is a kind, true gentleman and you find comfort in his brief company, as he comes for his daily cup of coffee: long black, which you eventually learn is his guilty pleasure. You have never seen him with wife, children, brothers or parents; embarrassment prevents you from asking such questions and he does not provide them on his own initiative.

One day, he brings you a pair of goggles with orange lenses; orange is your favorite color and you squeal with delight as you hug your friend. You are acquainted with goggles as a fashion statement, but these are marked from years of wearing. They are very simple and plain, with scratches here and there, but well built and sturdy. You end up not caring that these are working goggles and start wearing them as a fashion statement anyway. Asim is thrilled that you like them, and from that moment on, he becomes the brother you never had.

Things at the café happen almost exactly as you envisioned, and soon you are trading bringing coffees to customers and dish washing for character studies and mimicking your colleague’s gestures. Asim is, however, still working at the factory, and he is growing tired. You meet once in a while in the café. The bigger and bigger demands for energy have made his factory and many others acquire new equipment which satisfy the population’s needs, yet are responsible for a dramatic increase of air and sound pollution. Asim used to only put his goggles on when he was near the more dangerous machines; now every factory worker was required to put on goggles as soon as they stepped on factory grounds. You feel powerless to do anything but offer a supportive shoulder. In the meantime, you keep practicing genuine laughter and tears, keep practicing projecting your voice, and during these months of training you try and ignore the reality of what is going on around you.

But there comes a point when you can’t ignore anymore. You are now a full-fledged actress, with some minor roles and some other very promising castings on the horizon, but, outside, the cities are covered in a gray fog, mustard in those particularly difficult days. Goggles are no longer the fashion staple of your early teenage years; people wear them everyday on the streets, to the point you start having nightmares when you think about it - that the world just stares at you with colored lenses in place of eyes, and, when you look in the mirror, you have no eyes, only orange lenses. Some higher-up must have had similar nightmares, as the next step attempts to change just that. The Dome, as you read in newspapers, is a recent invention sponsored by the government in order to repel pollution particles and ensure air quality inside selected buildings and venues: the Theater is one of them. Made of a special metal fiber, it is only able to be seen in a specific angle, and it does not overly block sun rays. It is a good idea, in theory… but scandal soon erupts, and you learn that, in order to build that structure, more fabrics are needed. You remember at some point practically punching a wall. Can’t there be a way to solve this more efficiently?

Asim develops a cough; soft and discrete at the beginning, soon progressing to coarse and rough. After weeks of not getting better, he gives up and allows you to take him to a doctor. You use almost all your savings to do so, but you don’t care; this feels important. Asim brings you his x-ray and you understand very little, but it looks to you as if the places where his lungs should be are covered with white speckles and grains. Your heart sinks and your skin sweats as you pray for his recovery; but then, one day comes and you have to move to another city. Asim writes you his contact on a little sheet of paper, but when you arrive in your new home you can’t find it anywhere. It’s gone, it’s gone and you search feverishly for it and you go back as soon as your schedule allows but quickly learn he is no longer a client at the café. You attempt to find his home, to no avail, when you remember to check at the factory.

You practically fall on your knees as you find out he is no longer working at the factory. No one knows what happened to him, only that he quit. He hadn’t been to any recent doctor’s appointments too. You try again, and try, and try some more, and nothing. No sightings, no conversations, no nothing.

Back at home, you shake in your boyfriend’s, now fiancée’s arms. Suddenly your head hurts very, very much. Perhaps he just had to move away all of the sudden because of personal issues? Or maybe he decided he didn’t want to have that kind of work anymore, moved in search of a better life? You fervently wish things had been different - that he had written his contact in three different papers, that you had given him not only your contact but also address and contacts of your family members.

You were letting your tears soak your fiancée’s shoulder when you realized that, if he is alive, there is a way he can find you. You just have to work really, really hard. If you work hard enough, everyone will see and hear of you. Everyone will know how to come to you.

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The ceremony is over. There had been a few surprise winners, but mostly they were all very safe, predictable choices. The guests had slipped away for a few minutes at a time, busy in changing outfits for the after party.

Ah, the after party; a feast of exquisite food, drink and showing off the latest gadgets. You know all about the current rage: a sleek pedal that, when pressed, would make the life-sized statue of a cat walk on two legs and carry a tray full of hors d'oeuvres to a specific location for people to pick up. Prominent personalities were already lauding the invention as the very future of efficiency. You admit, you are intrigued, but the relief of not going to attend the after party is much more pleasant than quenched curiosity. In the midst of all the excitement, no one would really notice if you were not there.

In the limo, you get rid of the wig and keep your real hair braided. The voluminous skirt, too, has to go, as you have a comfy pair of shorts with a belt with pockets underneath. As for your feet, they are surrounded with a very soft, adjustable fabric, and that’s how they did not hurt while wearing brass boots. Although stylish, you take them off and stick with the basic fabric; it makes less noise too.

The limo leaves you in a previously agreed upon spot; the chauffeur was the only person that did not want to know more. For your parents and closer friends, you were returning home to your fiancée’s; for your not-so-closer friends, you were chilling at the after party and avoiding cameras at all costs, sad and teary that you didn’t win anything. You are grateful that the limo leaves quickly; the air is chilling as you grab the goggles with the orange lenses you had packed before. The smoke was dense that night; dark-blue, purple, ominously tenebrous. You approach the nearby factory: it is encased in a Dome, but you want to keep the goggles anyway. It is supposed to have security, but the guards are fixated on the news: you can hear them some loudly commenting their bet results on the winners and the other disgruntled, not willing to let go of their money. Still, they are trained professionals and you are not, so you make haste towards your target.

What is right? What is wrong? What can be done? What shouldn’t be done? These are the questions that plague you as you bend over, observing the floor below yours. This is it. You take another object from your pockets; this time, a small device, highly specialized and complex. You could never ever had created something like that, even if you were given a hundred years to do so, but your fiancée has an excellent mind for this sort of thing and a great group of friends to boot. He does not want you to get caught and you promised you wouldn’t - five more minutes and another limo will come to pick you up; like the first, no questions in exchange of a fair compensation.

Maybe there isn’t a perfect way. Maybe progress is inherently flawed, and prone to corruption, utterly tainted. But you have not studied to be an actress and fought long and hard to earn a nomination to not know a few things about perseverance and will… and also about the importance of looks and attention. You are probably never going to hear from Asim again, but there are others, so many others, in present, past and future, and for them you feel you must fight too.

You tried very hard to come up with the best plan, but, ultimately, there really is no such thing as a perfect plan. You can only hope that inside this factory, one of the biggest in your city, most workers would be either at home or with the security men, lamenting their lost wages. You pray one last time that it goes according to your intel, that the big bosses decided to have a big banquet to celebrate their new shady deal on the night of the ceremony there, on one of the factory’s offices. You let the prayer hang for just a few more moments, until you know you can’t delay it anymore otherwise you are breaking a promise. It is with a sigh that you leave the device in the arranged space and hurriedly make your way towards the entry. Only then you turn around for a second and press the button on the remote. There is no turning back now. The limo is waiting, as anticipated.

Later tonight, all broadcasts will be bursting.

You are fourteen plus seven years old and used to bright lights; you try to ignore the screaming, though.