Idea Belt – Fiction

Intro

This story came out of a walk in the woods. In order to be present, I studied the various elements around me: sky, wind, dirt, snow, moss, rocks. Along the way, I was reminded of Seneca’s belief in picking one thing to study intensely. This came out of all that. What popped the most: describing the sky.

Story

The expansive workshop could have easily allowed dozens of employees, but just one man was present. An enormous window, which required a specialized crane, took up the entire southern wall. Beneath the window, a simple conveyor belt ran constantly. Work was done both day and night without artificial light. Stations for extraction, analysis, and documentation were close behind the conveyor belt. Tools on hooks lived within easy reach. 

Hundreds of packets crossed the conveyor belt each day. The belt itself was quiet, young enough to be well-oiled and slick. A short yelp and guttural belches from packets, however, were commonplace. The voices hailing him certainly piqued his curiosity.

A particularly curious-looking package — a calm shade of blue, corners rounded and napkin white— grabbed his attention. The operator ignored pleas from “blistered toe” and “should be lesson planning,” both of which entered the opposite receptacle and made their journey to short-term storage. He raised the package with ease, as if it were filled solely with air. The operator brought it over to the inspection table. It slid close to the edge. He snapped it up nervously.

“Straight to extraction for you!” he declared.

Hammer, chisel, axe, and saw lay ready, pinned to the wall like excited lovers. The operator gently tugged at one of the ruffled edges. The packet tore open. Soft blue sheets expanded out, painting the walls with sky and clouds. He stood back, eyes wide in wonder and a healthy amount of fear. The peaceful explosion littered fabric softener clouds on the ceiling. Packets stopped their whining. The operator held his breath, looking like a girl gazing at Elvis Presley.

“What do I do with you?” he whispered longingly.

The packet, lying open, was suddenly colorless, having evicted its tenant. The operator coughed once, instinctively awkward. He smiled, looked down, and carefully reached inside the now cardboard-like container. His fingers flirted with the packing list. He pulled it out gingerly, as if disarming a global-destructing bomb. The paper was tender and folded in quarters. He peeled a corner back slowly. Like a strip tease of nervousness, he revealed the guiding question. 

“Huh?” The operator wondered, almost dazed, “Just one?”

Indeed, there on the slip of paper, creased but cleanly legible: how does one describe the sky beyond a sheet of calm blue? He scanned across the ceiling and walls. The clouds moved by an invisible and brisk wind. A package tore off the conveyor and struck him square on the cheek. On its cover, one word: wind. 

“Let me guess! How does one describe wind besides ‘it touched his face with kisses’? One at a time now.”

The operator dropped the wind packet in a bin marked for one-month short-term storage. He refocused on the sky above him. Plopping into his favorite leather reclining chair, the operator stared up from the analysis station. The chair propped his legs up in a comfortable fashion. He couldn’t see past the fogged blue glass, but he knew there was matter beyond. He tacked the guiding question on a bulletin board, repeating the question quietly. By this time, the conveyor belt was alive with demands, making his work difficult. 

Canvas of earthly blue. Ocean blue. Blue fabric. All cliché. 

Midday Maine mud season blue. Better.

Broken only by… a packet of hazy white tendrils screamed, “CLOUDS!”

“Yes, of course! I know this. My focus is the sky,” the operator retorted.

“You need to describe me in order to finish your statement! There are CLOUDS up there!”

“Fine! Broken up like a composition notebook cover. Happy?”

The cloudy packet sullenly continued on. The operator guiltily grabbed it and slammed it into the short-term bin. The calm above him looked on with non-judgmental, never-ending eyes. He felt judged regardless, perhaps solely by himself. If he could touch it, though he never could, the operator imagined a thin layer of coolness. Beyond that, where the light transitioned to airless black, he dared not go. 

Packets never popped open like this. The operator scanned for the ladder. He squinted off to his right. There, against the wall and next to the iron door, was an eight-foot step ladder. A quarter mile distant. He progressed three paces in that direction before stopping. His eyes darted between the sky ceiling and the eight-foot step ladder.

“Perhaps there are just some things we can’t quite articulate. The beauty is in trying,” he said to himself.

The operator skipped to the documentation desk. He forced a leaf of paper down and dipped his pen in the inkwell. He wrote that statement in a messy mix of cursive and print. Stop. He felt positively urged on by the turquoise overhead. Words soared to him like eagles. Their screeches coaxed him to scribble notes. The operator worked feverishly, while ideas passed by untouched. He didn’t consider them, even as they left his room and entered the complex system of tubes and pulleys destined for long-term storage or vanishing from existence.

At last, his paper was filled. He waved it to dry the ink. 

He folded the sheet into an envelope, wrote the destination Impossible To Articulate Beauty, and dropped it on the conveyor belt. Breathing a sigh of satisfaction, the operator whistled. The packet vibrated and rumbled, vacuuming the sky back into its container. He held the packet shut while he directed a strip of tape across the top. 

With that, he tossed the packet back onto the belt and allowed himself a moment to watch. Packets rolled by. His tools waited anxiously for their next use. The short-term storage bin looked nearly full. Administration would be furious if he let that overflow. He stuck his hand into the ball pit and yanked out a random packet. 

“Who are you?” The operator tilted his head as he walked to the inspection station. He picked up the hammer, who simmered with glee.

More Seneca-related thoughts