The jungle of soot covered steel towered over the little girl. Her raggedy floral dress fell just past her scraped knees and swayed faintly in the gentle breeze as she walked down the dirt road. The grey sky loomed above and she wished that she could see what a blue sky looked like. The ear piercing sound of metal clashing against metal filled the polluted air around her and she cringed her small face. Her father, her brothers, her uncles, hell even her mother, all worked in these giant industrial death traps earning hardly anything for their labor.
A Rolls Royce drove down the earth road, causing dust to fly around the girl. She coughed as she watched the expensive car speed through her neighborhood. A few times, luxurious cars came in from the East and West. A few times, they stopped, and she saw the women with feathers in their hair and pearls around their pale necks. She knew they were called flappers. She wanted to be like them. But she was never going to be. She lived here. She wasn't going anywhere except the same place her entire family went. To the factories.
YOU ARE READING
Little Girl in the Valley
Short StoryThis is a little piece I wrote about the valley of ashes from The Great Gatsby. It's from the point of view of a child who lives there.
