NationStates Jolt Archive

August 28th, 2004

Abdul Al-Tikriti awoke in cold sweat within his humble home deep within the Persepolis ghetto. In a tiny two room shanty made of cardboard and scrap metal, 12 Arabs lived as virtual wage slaves to Persian overlords. His wife was crying unrelentlessly over the lifeless body of her infant, carried off by tuberculosis in the night. The family had so little money, not even the simplest medical care could be purchased. Not that it was avalible, the ghetto they lived in was walled off from Persepolis and guarded by towers and minefields. The only way out was temporary, for work in one of the sweatshops nearby belching smoke directly into the town of cardboard, wood, and scrap metal. Abdul had suffered every day here in what the Persians called the secure zone, where crime had been confined to along with the suffering proletariat. Abdul was preparing for his work, still before sunrise so he could arrive at his six AM shift at the Teymorian Steel Plant. Taking the body of the infant from his home, he was struck with thousands of horrible scents, that of feces and death. Every day, people would simply leave their dead in front of their homes for pickup by a body crew, who dumped them into a landfill at one end of the ghetto. Every day, hundreds died of disease. He made his way through the twisting lanes, passing hundreds of starving beggars, and bodies of those who literally starved to death. He walked closer to the gate, and could see in the distance the glass and stone towers of downtown Persepolis, where men worked tirelessly to give Parthia the look of a first world nation of progress and prosperity. Abdul grinned as he neared the gate checkpoint to head to his job.

Above him, the gates of concrete rose up with miniguns mounted upon the walls. He filed through throngs of people running to the terminal, where he placed his magnetic identification card into a scanner and then walked on into the parking lot. Between two of the massive walls, several hundred buses were parked, each bearing the name of a corporation who owned the bus. The people were to each board a vehicle destined for where they worked, in the case of Abdul, it was Teymorian's infamous steel plant, famous for cutting wages on a constant basis and the most unsafe working conditions on the planet. The bus ride was mercifully short, riding upon a bus designed to trans port prisoners with a driver caged off from the proletariat, like a warden guarded from prisoners by bars. The bus pulled once again into a guarded area, a steel plant which looks like a prison, with concrete walls and guard towers. Smoke clouded the skies and left the people coughing. It was hardly a wonder that the people in the ghettoes all had at least half of their children suffering from asthma. Abdul sighed, and then marched into the factory behind a line of people. Inside, the air was oppressivley hot, on average every day one worker was injured or killed on the job, and often more were. His job was simple enough and perhaps one of the least dangerous, it was to push a lever to dump a load of molten steel into a mould waiting below. However, the poor fools unlucky enough to get stuck with the job of changing the moulds for the massive blocks of iron were often burned horribly. The bucket would dump whenever the molten steel would start cooling, and people would sometimes not finish their job quick enough and the bucket would automatically tip and cook the unlucky people below.

(OOC: Very excellent writing, Parthia.

*Tag*)

Ooc- Good stuff, not often do we see on NS, the stories of commoners. Good job. :)

(OOC: I was thinking of doing something similar once, about a day in the life of an RB soldier, but I figured no one'd want to read it. :()

OOC: Beautifully written. Hats off to you.

Thank you for the positive feedback. I got the idea to write something like this from The Jungle, an obvious piece of propaganda I'm reading in history class.

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It's really good, man, keep it up.

More! More!

For 15 minutes at twelve noon, the workers were allowed to stop working. It was then, for the brief time, the exausted proletariat could eat what meager food they could afford to bring or purchase. Abdul was too poor to afford the luxury of lunch, and soon, he would be even more poor. The loudspeaker blared, "Attention, we are cutting many jobs to make room for more automation, this will help us cut costs. Please check the bulletin board for your name, if it is on there, please report outside for transport back to the ghetto." With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he approached the board and looked, then, seeing his name spelled out in bold, black letters, he nearly fained. Thoughts raced through his head, "How can my family survive, we will starve!" With a heavy heart, he walked trough the doors and into the lot, where he boarded the bus, again, taking him back to the scents and horrors of the "secure area." Through the windows, he could see the massive Persepolis Tower, a spire of glass stretching 1450 feet into the air. Inside, he knew middle class office workers were running off to eat in the many restaurants of the city. Abdul had never seen the restaurants on the inside, and the only Arabs who have were those who work there. It was sad, to see the massive spires of the city, and very nearby, the spires of the greatest Zoroastrian temple in the world, one almost 1300 years old and used almost continually for the constant praise of the Persians' God. Abdul thought often as a Muslim, Allah had left him to be torn apart every day by Persian fire worshippers, or perhaps it was the Persians who had the One True God, but, he could not continue on with these thoughts, fearing for his soul, the one thing Parthia had not stolen from him.

Thank you for the positive feedback. I got the idea to write something like this from The Jungle, an obvious piece of propaganda I'm reading in history class.

OOC: Nice writing, but no offense, I do question your depiction of The Jungle as a "piece of propaganda."

Granted, parts of it may have been enhanced for dramatic effect, but a lot of that stuff was true. They were putting borax in sausage and all sorts of other stuff into meat, the US Government even confirmed Upton Sinclair's allegation's later on with a study that detailed the contents of one type of "potted ham" as a mix that included bits of rope and other disgusting materials.

ooc: still it was written to achieve a certain agenda. Anyway... this is excellent keep at it.

hooray plight of the proletariat. . . good stuff.

One of the best threads ever. 'Nuff said!

One of the best threads ever. 'Nuff said!

Thank you, are you really serious though?

OOC: Original and well written. Excellent job.

Thank you, are you really serious though?

I'm as serious as Shoobans are stupid. In other words, 150%.

With a heart as heavy as lead, he walked off the bus into the processing point. His bus was the only one there, but, nearby, he could see a well dressed Persian buisnessman walk around picking out strong looking people and giving them a card. He walked up to Abdul and spoke, "Sorry you lost your job, but I have one you can't miss. Its decent pay, and your family won't starve. Its called DoomCorp, its weapons manufacturing. If you want the job, tell me your name and address and I'll make the arrangements for you to work there." Abdul did what was asked, and then shown where the bus pickup was and allowed to pass through the checkpoint into the stench of the ghetto. He made his way home, only to hear screams as their neighbors' home was broken in by men in black military suits with black hoods. SAVAK was dragging their son away into a police vehicle, and it was likely he would never be seen again. Such was his penalty for attacking the Shah.

The next day, gunshots rang out as another SAVAK strike killed off a dissident and drove off in his M113 APC. He was, like his other neighbors taken off in the night, known to be a critic of the Shah, and a loud one at that. It was inevitable, thought Abdul as he readied himself for his new job. Of it, he knew little, except it was foreign owned, which is good in Parthia, where native employers pay cents a day. He was full of anticipation as he passed more of the unemployed, who had died in the muddy streets or sat down literally starving to death. It was a horrible sight one encountered on these streets. A widow and her children were cast from their home onto the street when they could not pay after their father was killed in an oil refinery. Now, they were reduced to living skeletons, sitting there waiting for death to take them. Abdul came to the bus lot, and then, boarded the bus to Doom corp, with an air of exitement around him. Then, as he neared the concrete structure with smoke bellowing from great stacks and walled off from the outside with machineguns and concrete, he knew it would be different, for worse.

DoomCorp was the largest single corporate entity in all of Doomingsland, and one of the largest in the world. It owned such corporations as Doomingsland Defence Industries (the particular branch that Abdul found himself working for), and used that to their advantage. The factory in Parthia was constructed to produce weapons for the Parthian army, and was constantly expanding to suit the demands of their rather large customer. DoomCorp mercenaries patroled along the tops of the 50ft high concrete walls, staying behind the razor wire while keeping an eye on the bus. The mercenaries, all sadists in their own right, were ex-Doom Legionnaries being employed by DoomCorp as its own private army. They were some of the toughest, best trained men, and also the most brutal. 25mm autocannon turrets tracked the bus as it approached the main gate. Once there, it was made to halt, and was borded by two heavily armored mercs.

The two men wore dark blue VEPR NGCS and carried M28 rifles (both were products of the corporation, though the VEPR was actualy built under liscence from Soviet Bloc). They scanned the crowd for a few seconds, and one of the gaurds walked towards Abdul, who was, by now, very frightened. Abdul couldn't see the man's face, as it was covered by the gasmask-like face piece on the helmet. The man lifted Abdul from his shirt coller with seemingly no effort (a product of the system), and tossed him into the aisle. The other workers seemed not to notice, as if this was normal. The two men were on either side of him, and were conversing with one another through their masks. Their language was unrecognizable to Abdul, and their voices reminded him of robots. Suddenly, one of them motioned for him to stand, and urged him forward off the bus. Upon stepping off, the doors shut behind him, and the bus sped off through the gates towards the compound.

One of the men seized Abdul by the head, and jammed a needle into his neck. The last thing he saw was mask of one of the mercs as he dozed off.

A few hours later, he woke up in a small, dirty hospital room with his head shaven. He looked around terrified, woundering what had happened. Perhaps this was a dream? he thought to himself. Suddenly, the door to the room creaked open, and a merc stepped through. He motioned for Abdul to follow, and headed out the door. Abdul stood, but stumbled a bit, nearly falling over. He headed out the door, into a bright looking hallway. It had shiny blue floors and white walls with flat panel screens on them with a man's head on them, saying something in some language he didn't recognize. He stepped into a large lobby, and was made to get on line with several other workers. After standing in total silence for ten minutes, they were made to follow yet another merc, who lead them to the factory floor...

Near him, he could see a conveyor moving down with parts of what looked like an engine being assembled. In fact, it was an engine, being produced for the M-29 tank, created by Doomingsland and produced for the Parthian Army. Known to the Doomingsland army as the Arbiter, the Persians called it the Rostam MBT. A spectacular piece of technology, and all Abdul would do for it would be to weld a few parts together. He looked around, and could see small drones hovering in the air and looking at the workers' work to ensure no sabotage was going on. They would fly off soon and then move on. Abdul sighed, this was his future, until he died, this would be his home. He was horrified when he heard a scream, a man had fallen into the mould used to cast certain metal parts for the tank and was burned by metal in several spots. The mercs snarled, "That is expensive, we need to bill your family for damages...." by the time the merc stopped talking, the worker was dead.

(Awesome, there's more!!)

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