the Engine Room

The little girls fingers twine and untwine.
The photographer moves things on the surface of the camera and smiles instructions at her.
She always does what grown-ups tell her to do.
But today she’ll be extra good, because it’s her birthday photograph.
She wants only for father and mother to tell her how pretty she looks.
Amelia King will soon be six years old. It is 1933, or maybe ’34, but she can’t remember.

Mr. Arlo fondles his camera, getting her to smile more.
In just a moment he will take her photograph.
But her dolly has begun to whisper again.
Amelias’ eyes slide towards the plastic infant.
Mr. Arlo clucks softly and she is facing him again, with a big bright smile and her chin held high.
Twine and untwine.
The doll is speaking with more urgency, even though it’s against the rules.
One of it’s eyelids is frozen half open, in a conspiratorial expression.
Twine, pinch and untwine.

Mr. Arlos’ long fingers freeze in place over knobs and buttons.

The doll is speaking louder now.
Why doesn’t Mr. Arlo hear her and tell her to stop?
Amelia is afraid that the doll will move.
The doll knows more about Amelias’ father and his factory than she does. It knows what a factory is and what high, grey walls, which block the sun out, look like.
Amelia has never seen a smokestack, a transmission gear or a boiler.
She doesn’t understand what a catwalk is, or anything else her dolly says for the remaining unbearable seconds.

Snick, pop, flash, crackle and the blackened bulb cools.

“Mr. Arlo, what does mangled mean?”
His smile slips, hung on a hook and waiting.
“And what’s an incinerator?”