washing machines and stoves on burly trucks to far off places,
places not on the edge of town. At fi ve o'clock in the morning,
before the sun had risen, hundreds of men and women, clothed in
grey linen pants and shirts, would trudge towards the buildings,
heads bent towards the cracking asphalt. Occasional gusts of wind
would blow up dust into their faces and rattle the ten foot skeletal
fence that enveloped the factory. Otherwise, except for the shuf-
fl ing of feet on cement, the morning was as silent as an abandoned
shipyard.
eyes, and corroded pipes veined their way through the corridors.
Under Marian's feet, the machines began to hum. Her teeth began
to chatter from the vibrations.
on doorsteps throughout the country proclaimed that Mortimer's
produced "America's coldest fridge" and that nestled in her shelves,
milk would never curdle and bread would never mold.
utes thereafter a pretentious bell would sound and the assembly
line would lurch forward. With her screwdriver clenched in her hand,
it was Marian's job to swiftly, and with precision, fasten a cold metal-
lic handle onto each new fridge door as it passed on the conveyor
belt. Often sweat dripped down her brow as she kept up a steady
pace. Periodically, she would sneak a look down the line at the
dozens of heads slumped over the belt, and the accompanying pairs
of hands intricately dancing back and forth, gluing, bolting, ham-
mering and welding. As the line moved forward, stacks and sheets
of metal, bolts, screws and assorted plastics, morphed into the fi nal
product in a matter of hours. Hours after hours.
not her job," she had been told. For some reason she was not sure
of, this caused her pulse to scamper and her stomach to churn as if
something was caught inside, like a tiny kitten unable to escape its
fate in a deep and dark well.
somewhere deep in the factory. There, each function of the fridge
would undergo a rigorous testing and assessment, including, of
course, Marian's handle.