The Second Dimension

Rose

One year on

Tchak.

The silver blade cut in two the curtain of dawn that shrouded the room in soft light and planted itself with a thud in the white wood.

Rose smiled. Exactly right.

She lifted the cascade of auburn locks falling before her eyes with a pair of flaking tongs and grabbed the ochre apron resting on the garnet sheets, which she tied around her waist. Knives. At least one area where she could compete with the bourgeois of Blancheville who took throwing lessons at the Tour de Verre. Maybe even the whole of Valléeverte. As if they would ever need it. You bet. Bits of bacon wrapped in precious cloth, throwing knives?

Rose dashed across the sunbeam. The soft caress of dawn made her want to lie on the sheets all day long. Especially on this holy day.

She withdrew the knife in a brief jerk and replaced it in the sleeve of her grey canvas blouse.

Black day. If anyone comes near, just slice their carotid artery. Simply.

Black days were nothing special, except of course for excessively high kidnap rates.

Anyhow.

Reluctantly, Rose had to give up the little paradise of daylight in the room for a task that was not much more fun - going to work.

Slamming the door with an exaggerated vigour - which often drew the wrath of her neighbours - she made her way through the bland corridors of Block C. With its thin, cracked walls, threadbare carpet (mice?) and flickering neon lights, the whole building was a sight to behold. Rose often wondered what miracle was keeping it standing.

As if immersed in an icy bath, there was none of the pleasant warmth that filtered through her window. Resembling the whims of autumn in every way, the wind whistled through the streets, sweeping away the grime embedded in the cobblestones, whose true colour could be seen in places.

Along the way, grey buildings stretched as far as the eye could see. These were not the cheerful, colourful shops of Blancheville, but pitiful factories, sometimes sad wastelands. The rudimentary, unadorned signs, with their grimy windows rendered opaque by fog, made the Grande-Rue a sad, bland alleyway. There were very few magnetic cars on the road - or else, invariably grey or black, they clashed with the bleak landscape.

Rose's factory, a large and well-known electronic components factory, unassumingly named Hywel's, stood proudly at the end of the High Street.

The large shop window provided the only hint of colour - the letters forming the word HYWEL'S were painted a pale, decrepit green, with the plaster peeling off in many places.

Two pigeons had landed on the letters' spotlights, their heads tilted to one side.

Idiots.

One of them crossed the road at the wrong moment and ended up in a heap under the wheels of a lorry, which was unscrupulous about the state of its wheels, now stained with brownish blood.

Tchak. The other pigeon, skewered on the silver knife. It wasn't that Rose was crazy about pigeon, but eaten in moderation, it was a nice change from the infamous concoctions traditionally served every other day. And pigeons looked better on a spit than anywhere else.

Rose smiled and pushed open the glass doors.

For as long as she could remember, she had worked here. On her tenth birthday, she had moved from Centre 9 to the attic in C block.