The Canyon-Blume

First Outbreaks

Good morning Austria, says the six o'clock news when I get up to go to work and I see that one more day the Austrian anthem is playing, calling for us to sing along with the television, but I have long since refused to sing. My wife Johanna always prepares me for breakfast a fried banana and a fried egg with a cup of coffee with milk, it tastes very good.

Today is the first day I have been working at the textile factory since last time I worked, that was two weeks ago that I got the flu and had a very bad time, the state would not pay me if I didn't go to work, my wife went instead of me, I don't know what I would do without her.

When I finished my breakfast I got dressed and prepared to leave and take the bus that was two blocks from my parents' house. I moved to the south because of this job offer in a government textile company before the war was over, because my family could not stand the intense cold that was happening in Schleswig-Holstein and I needed to take care of my father Alfred. He lets us live in his house, I have to admit that I would never be able to save enough money to get a huge house like his.

As I was heading to the bus station, I ran into my co-worker Edward, we greeted each other and headed to the bus station together. Edward told me that today's work would be stamping on posters propaganda for the first "SUO elections", he was impatient to go to work incredibly, when they put us an exhausting, tiring and repetitive work, I always saw him quite serious, When we arrived at the bus stop, we got on and sat down separately since it is in alphabetical order, I am writing this before arriving at the factory, I hope it will not be a very tiring day, I said looking at the dense cloud that covered all of Europe.

When we entered the factory the managers disperse the people of each class and sector separately in groups, that is, those of level 2-B with those of level 2-B only, and so with each group, the guard checks if we have attended the work, once completed the inspection of clothing, we start to work, I sit in the chair of my workplace and I see that in the boxes contains electoral propaganda of each party, this time I had to work with the Offset printing, I remember having seen in the morning news that five political groups were running in the "SUO elections", I had to work with one called "Die Leutespartei", I had not heard of this party, its electoral program was clear, more freedom, higher wages and defeat the patriarchy, quite striking the truth, I started to work with the printers, watching the sun rose while I pasted the propaganda to steel panels which would be pasted in the houses today.

Edward and the other workers, although they were quite far away, we sang when the guards took their break, we imitated instruments with the material of the factory to pass the time, and just as quickly as I finished attaching the propaganda of six boxes of that party, the bell rang indicating the time for the lunch break, I sat next to the colleagues with whom I talked the most, I sat with Sigmund, a neighbor of mine to whom I had been buying the lottery for a couple of months, Edward and Faber, Faber is a somewhat clueless and dirty person, he is stingy and has two jobs but he is the one who smells the most like dead among us.

–Can you believe it? –Said Faber as I just sat down with them, and then added. –We work so hard, they give us a pittance of a salary and they don't provide lunch themselves. We work so hard, they give us measly conditions of work and they don't provide us with lunch themselves, what makes our boss think we can afford to bring lunch every day to work?

–Faber, –Replied Edward to insert himself into the conversation. –Don't go back to the same old theme over and over again, we all know that if you can't make ends meet, it's because you don't have a woman to control you if you make ends meet, ain't I right fellas? –Said Edward in a roast up tone in front of our group.

Faber was a person who has been searching for a woman since a very young age, we knew that but he hasn't found a woman yet at the age of thirty-one years old, he furrowed his eyebrows as the group burst out laughing and patted him on the back in consolation.

Sigmund entered the debate as the only party in the center of the situation, trying to calm the boys down so that he could once again start a serious conversation.

–Guys, calm down my people, if you fight, fight outside of work, not here, I don't want us to get fired, –Said Sigmund looking everyone in the eye and speaking with his mouth almost completely closed to make as little noise as possible with his fists on the table and then added in a more peaceful tone. –Well, you seem a bit quiet lately Boris, is there something wrong? Tell us, don't be afraid of your own friend group buddy, that's what we are here for.

At that moment I felt chills, I saw that all the eyes of the group were directed towards me, I did not know what to say, they all were puzzled about my situation, but the truth is that something was happening to me, I answered in delay.

–Well, the truth is, I think I'm going to be a father soon –I replied with shyness and fearfulness, visible in my eyes.

The first thing they did was they started squealing and they all looked at me with great joy, high-fived me, said a lot of nice things about it, were very happy about it, and started singing me a song loudly to annoy me like the good friends they are and to make the whole factory realize it to kill me with embarrassment.
After the commotion, Sigmund revealed that he always kept a couple of beers hidden in his backpack, and he would share them during truly special moments that were worth it, this was one of those moments; we all drank until we were drunk and laughing uncontrollably, we were quite foolish, indeed.

During the rest of the workday that remained that day, not much else of note happened, the same as always.

As I was walking down the street to the bus stop, across the sidewalk, I noticed UO troops in front of a residential building, a man, with the palest face I have ever seen in my life, coming out of the glass door knowing his near destination.