Railroads

• Sam Nguyen, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

The rail worker slammed, with every single piece of might in him, into the ground with his tools, his workers around him forced their muscles to carry tracks over and over again, under the hot Australian sun. Buildings were cramped against each other, forcing it to move up and expand upwards, only a balcony to temporarily relieve the claustrophobic feeling. Thinly cut, cramped and compacted into slender rectangles, opposite to what life was like back in Britain. Multiple shops were built to accommodate this new burst of people moving into the new town of Sydney.
Wives of men that had established themselves as foundational support for the development of Sydney bathed in lavish luxury, enjoying the exported goods from mainland Britain, enjoying life as they saw fit. Most had begun eating their morning tea, with frilly dresses and puffy hats, unsuited to the current Australian weather.
A fair-skinned woman walked into a balcony, sucked their chest in and joyfully absorbed the bustling street around her. Yet her throat dried out suddenly and she spat out dust from below her, coughing with great dismay. Below the balcony, were sweaty dirty workers, covered in grime, indistinguishable from one another, heaving up the metal rail tracks. In an instant, the women retreated her yellow and white dress in hopes of it being not corrupted with dust and grime spewing from the construction site.
Looking down on them, she spat out, “Don’t be so wretched! You low-life goops!” Her spit landed on one of the worker’s faces, their wrinkles cringing from such loathing of middle to poor class workers. The women swung her face in defiance and sat back down inside, away from the choking dust.
Only minutes had passed when the agitated women stormed into the balcony and began raging flaming insults only possibly foretold by hell itself. A cacophony was banging and clanging noises was being produced below them, Tens of workers lifted their hammers and slammed it into the ground. She looked down upon the sweaty workers and screamed,
“My husband will detain you for your noise! You are all nothing but lowly workers! Scum of the Earth!”
Clearly nothing happened, her sense of power was a bloated ego from her husband’s decreasing influence and power in the workforce. Years had passed, buildings were torn down yet the rail track persevered.