The Green Box

We pedal on little wooden bikes, 4 of us in a bulb. We cycle as soon as the siren goes off; which is linked to the switch in the human giant’s kitchen. When the ending siren sounds, we stop and a machine next to us pops out our favourite hot drink, exactly how we like it.

“Bi’ busy tonight, innit?”

I turn around and face my short, bald friend of 13 years, Bill, “Yeah, well I suppose winter is coming.”

“They should’ve gotten more staff in for win’er, we can’t all work twelve-hour shifts.”

Bill lights up a fag with a yellow painted scaled hand; the smoke wafting out of the air vents. The president paints the left hand of every worker, once we’ve decided where we want to be for the rest of our lives.

“It’s happening everywhere Bill. The Water Workers and Heat Workers have a worse time of it,” I reply.

“Not bein’ funny Rob, but I don’t really care about them.” Bill takes a swig from his cup, spilling a little on his overalls. The man giant walks into the kitchen, pressing the light switch. The starting siren goes off, once again.

We file out of the bulb, at the end of our shift. The next shift workers go in; a neat line

on the left. We all have a yellow number 2 on the back of our white overalls. Bulb workers 1,3 and 4 of the kitchen; also, in white overalls, join us in our decent.

Bulb 1 Workers go first into the glass cylinder, it shoots off. We’re next. The conductor fastens our harness and climbs out of the tube; making sure the door is closed properly.

“Please keep your hands on your lap, and your feet firmly planted on the floor. Your goggles are below your seat,” the conductor says into a microphone; in a dreary tone. How many times has he said that? He’s been working on the tubes for over 10 years, and you can see it. In his dull eyes and his wrinkled face.

He pulls the big red lever and lightning covers the outside of the glass. We shrink and shoot off. The giants think that the wires send electricity to the house, they aren’t. They’re our tubes, to get to our living quarters underneath your garden.

Only a few minutes into the journey. With our hands in the air, screaming for joy; we come to an immediate stop. As the door opens, a wave of bustling voices and street food engulf us.

I see the other Bulb Workers, finishing their shifts. There’s the bathroom lot with blue numbers, the living room gals with brown. The bedroom oldies with pink and Barry; who looks after the child’s nightlight, has orange. The Water Workers are easy to spot mingled in with the white; parading their light blue overalls at us. The Heat Workers are the last to emerge with their red overalls.

Bill and I walk past the buildings made from bits of wood, cardboard or metal; whatever the giants put into the Black Box. That’s the foragers job. Not many people apply for that; they come home stinking every day.

We stroll towards Mike. He’s only just got the job as a forager; it gives him more time to look after his ill mother.

“How was your first day?” I ask; noticing the small haul from today scavenge.

“Bit crap to be honest, couldn’t find any food.”

“Wha’? But we’re already on rations. We can’t go on like this for much longer,” Bill says.

“Yeah, well tell that to the giants. Apparently, it’s happening everywhere. The giants have

stopped putting food in the Black Box. The President’s known for weeks.”

“And he just forgot to tell us?” Bill quips.

Mike shrugs in response and brushes his sweaty blonde hair out his face. “I dunno do I? I’ve just started this job, but we’ve been told to keep it all hush hush.”

“We must speak to the president,” I say.

“The president won’t say anything to us, we’re only the workers,” Bill says.

“Fine then, we’ll speak to the neighbours,” I sigh.

The three of us rush off the next morning, before all the workers wake. The streets are eerily quiet, drops of water falling from the ground above.

We sneak up the foragers ladder, made of toothpicks, to take us up top. Bill and I have never been outside, we’ve only seen it through the windows.

The grass leaves/blades are at least 10ft bigger than us, we have to strain our necks just to see the grey sky.

Mike hands Bill and I thick forager’s bomber jackets. “I got these from the lock up, hope they fit.”

Mike takes his foragers machete out of his belt, which he swipes left to right; making a trench to the fence. Mounds of earth surround us, some bigger than us, some little lumps in the ground.

We carry walking; cautious of creatures from up top and being trodden on by the giants. We reach a mass of muddy water, carrying a creature. Presumably dead. “What’s that?” I ask.

Mike takes out his handbook, flicking pages until he’s found what he’s looking for. “It’s a lake, and the thing floating is an ant,” he says.

“Right okay then, what else do we have to be wary about?” Bill asks waving his arms around.

“We have to stay calm Bill.” I turn to Mike who’s checking his compass. “Give me the machete, you keep the handbook and compass handy in case we come across anything else. Which direction?”

“This way.” Mike points in a north east direction. Me in front, Mike and Bill just behind.

We reach the imposing brown fence just an hour later.

“Well what do we do now then?” Bill huffs.

“There should be a gap to the left, not far from here,” Mike replies.

He strides to the gap. We crawl through the gap into 15 Gran Street. The grass is shorter here, just coming up to or knees.

A huddle of foragers surrounds their black box, they’re arguing.

“But we can’t make it to the front. We might be detected!” One of them shouts. He’s bold, and skinny.

Another one turns around, facing us as we get nearer. “You lot aren’t from 15, where did you come from?” She asks. She has a star stitched to her upper left arm. The sign of a team leader.

“We’re from 14, just next door.”

“What are you doing here? You two aren’t foragers,” she says. She stares at Bill and mine’s yellow hands.

“We wanted to know if you knew anything about the food shortage?” Mike asks.

“We’ve just found out actually, the giants across the street are putting the food in green boxes at the front of the house. No idea why,” the woman says.

“But how are we supposed to get near it? We’ll be seen. We could be killed!” The bald man shouts.

“Exactly, we don’t know what to do. We’re nearly out of food,” the woman replies.

“So are we. We need to work together to get to the green box,” I say.

“Who put you in charge?” Another of their team asks.

“He’s right, if we work together then we can stop the food shortage. If we can get to the front without being detected, then others can follow. No-one else needs to die.” The woman says.

“What are your names? I’m Sarah, this is Bentley,” she nods to the bald man. “And this is Sam and Tam, the twins.”

“I’m Rob, this is Mike and Bill. What do you mean no-one else needs to die?”

“People of 1-8 houses, they haven’t had any food from the giants for a month. Some of their people have died of starvation.” Sarah folds her arms across her chest. “So, what do you suggest we do then?” She asks me.

“Well, that’s easy. We just work together.” I look around. There’s a passage at the side of the house, linking the front of the house to the garden. “We’ll go that way.”

A door to their garden starts to open. We stop dead, and crawl towards the passage.

The woman giant lights up a cigarette and stares at the cloudy sky.

The foragers of number 15 run down the side path straight away. Mike and I follow behind, Bill stands in the same spot.

“Come on Bill,” I whisper.

“I’m not going out there! We’ll be killed!” He shouts.

“Well you can’t stay here. You could be seen!”

He stares wide eyed at the giant.

“Go back then, tell our people that their gonna get fed tonight.” I sigh.

He nods his head, and without a word runs off into our garden.

I run after the others. There’s a crack between two planks on the wooden gate. Just big enough for us to crawl through, one by one.

“I’ll go first,” Sarah says. She looks at Mike and me. “You two come next, then my guys last.”

She crawls under the crack. “Woah! Be careful when you come through; there’s a crack in the ground. I hope your good at jumping!”

I take a deep breath and crawl through the gap. There’s barely any room to stand up before the huge abyss. I say a silent prayer to the gods and take a literal leap of faith. The grey concrete crashes into my face. “Ow!”

“Next person. Be slow and be careful. We still have 5 hours of daylight left, so there’s no rush.”

One by one, they blindly jump the gap in the ground. We carry on down the side path.

We stop in unison; a huge metal demon sits his eyes on us.

“What is that?” Sarah asks.

“I don’t know, but I’ve seen them moving past the windows before. They scream,” I reply.

“Well this one isn’t. Maybe it’s dead?”

“I don’t know… we should carry on quietly though, it might just be sleeping.”

It’s only after our initial shock of the demon, that we hear the giants. Walking and talking, it sounds as if they’re close. We don’t say anything to each other. Instead we crouch low and hide behind the tyre at the butt of the monster.

“What do we do?” Sarah asks. Her eyes wide.

The green box is past the monster, where the giants are. And where they can see us. I look around, there must be some way of getting to the green box undetected. A cylinder type thing is led on its side, it has COSTA written on it.

“What about if we hid under that?” I suggest.

“Don’t be so stupid,” Bentley retorts.

“Actually… I think that may be a clever idea. You’re a natural at this.”

I run towards COSTA, take the lid off, and drag it back to the group. We all stand in a circle and lower it over us.

“We can’t see now!” Bentley whines.

Sarah sighs, takes out her machete from her belt and cuts a small hole. We cautiously make our way to the green box.

A sound gets nearer to us. We stop. Watching as a child giant wizzes past us on a wooden plank with wheels. We wait until the noise has gone and carry on again.

We finally make it to the green box, and Sarah takes out a saw. She gets through to a green plastic mesh, the smell of the food hits us straight away.

“What’s that smell?”

“The foods gone mouldy… maybe there will be fresh stuff at the top.” She slides through the hole she made, and we wait. Only a couple of minutes have passed, and fresh food comes rolling through the hole towards us.

We make a production line, with Mike at the end, throwing the food into COSTA, which lays on its side. Once the food will no longer stay in COSTA, we put the lid back on and carry it towards the gate.

Sarah carries a piece of plastic from the green box. She places over the gap in the ground.

As we get to the gate, the foragers hack at it, to make the gap big enough for COSTA. We pass through the bigger gap and as we get to the end of the passage, we stop.

I peer around the corner; the woman giant is no longer there. Instead, we are greeted by our president and his bodyguards.

His eyes light up as he smells the food. “I am so proud of you all. You have saved us!”

“We will give you enough to feed your people for the night,” Sarah says. She turns to Mike and I. “Thank you for your help.”

The foragers of 15 hand us as much as we can carry. Even the president it getting his hands dirty. We say our goodbyes and trek back to our living quarters, where our people are waiting. They will eat well tonight.