Old Clocks Run Off Acid Fluid and Batteries

Plastic, crappy, crappy plastic. If you were by any change allergic to the ick smell of plastic, this would be like a deathwish. The machines were whizzing silently, moving slowly through the conveyer belt contents. Heads, arms, torsos, legs, feet, elbows, whichever and whatever were moving together, synchronized.

No one really thought about anything anymore, just sat there and made sure no forks were sticking through the eyes, no eyes were missing, the sort of thing you could possibly do in your sleep, really.

He watched over them with a watchful eye. Made sure they didn't drop a piece of lettuce on the belt. No one wants wilted lettuce attached to their little sex toy.

He wouldn't let them leave for their breaks. Technically, at least. They did get their breaks. But that just meant they got to treat themselves to the water cooler that was the exact opposite of 'cooler'. And reuse Dixie cups.

But he treated them, other than these minor fatalities, with the respect of an employer/employee. For this fact, these people kept working for this multi-media man. They produced his commercials, and made his dolls. They made his erotica book prints, and they edited it. They were his family, truly.

He may not know their names, but he could place kids to their parents as easily as someone of family-friend values.

He sat in this little bathroom stall of a cubicle, with his dinosaur computer buzzing idly, an uneaten sandwich was placed on top of the ginormous buzzing machine. The bottom was no doubt soggy with excess mustard and heated from the computer. His cabinet was more for his ties than anything. He kept his files in a filing box under his desk. He didn't need a lot of files, really. Everything rested within the hands of his family.

A knock came from the door, and his eyes pulled away from the living machines downstairs. He turns to his face his granddaughter, the one with the blonde hair, and brown eyes. The dominant and recessive genes at work again.

“Uhm, Tony said this, uh, was supposed to go to you,” she said this with her sultry, low voice. Her plaited skirt just risen to her Ashley Olsen knees. She was wearing the latest trend in shoes, her beloved flats. Cutting into her bone.

“What's it?” he says with his voice, like he hasn't spoken in a while, but more likely the case, he had just yelled at Brayden just twenty minutes earlier.

“The, uhm, the reports, from, uh, last week? I think? I'm not sure,” she wasn't really sure about a lot of things. He wouldn't be the first to admit this. She shuffles her feet around the office for 'good girl' measures.

“Desk,” he returns to the big bay window. The machines would be shutting down soon, and his family would go home. And then he would be back into the world. Walking, lonely, down his corridor in his business. Walking down his sidewalk and walking into his house. With his wife, and his foster child.

“Right. Uh--”

“You may go. Tell your mother Delainey would like her company. Good night, Melanie,” he was never a man with a tone to his voice.

“Uh- yeah, sure. Night. Thanks,” he doesn't know why she's thanking him, but he waves her off, no 'you're welcome,' is needed, anyway.

He was never one to speak last.

Smiling, he nods to the intern, who looked up at him, hand poised over the off switch. And as soon as it had come, his smile his gone, and his office light is turned off. With his sandwich left on the computer and his computer buzzing.