“Goram trucks!” Mabel hollered, sitting up as the mass reclamation truck went by. It’d come out of no where from behind her like they usually did, and the force from the mana reclamation machinery blew her off of her bike.
“Every gorram time I come back into town!” She coughed and sat up straighter, dragging herself out from under the bicycle. Beside her Chunk barked a few times, and wagged her tail. She’d ended up under the bike too, but didn’t seem to be too bad.
She leaned over, coughing. Her heart was goin now of course, and that meant it was gonna be hard to catch her breath. She’d just gotten over breathing hard durin the ride. Chunk scooted over, tail wagging. Mabel sighed and rubbed the dog’s head quickly.
“Well, you seem to be alrigh,” Mabel said.
She took a few more moments, then struggled up to her feet. She was still tryin to catch her damn breath. Leaning over with her hands on her knees, she knew that if she were someone else, they would have slowed down. Even offered up a ride. But she wasn’t no one else but herself.
Mabel’s eyes drifted to her cargo bike and between heaving for air, she sighed. She’d had a good momentum going too. Good speed, and she was breathing easy. But nope, not anymore.
Mabel dragged up the bike and started pushing it back up to the cracked roadway. Chunk wagged her tail and labored up the path with her, panting.
“Well you dun shouldna gotten pregnant if you’re gonna go on about it like that,” Mabel said to the pup, even as she knew she was huffing and puffing more. “Ain’t so nice to complain when you done did it to yerself.”
The road was clear either way—there wasn’t enough fuel to justify people having their own vehicles so it was just those big reclamation trucks and the occasional bicycle or shaman wagon. And not much in the way of bicycle traffic since most humans spent their time in front of a box.
Mabel moved to push her hat back, then paused.
“…Where’s my gorram hat now?!”
She looked around. Of course just as she was calming down this was gonna happen. She looked down at her fat-headed dog and said, “Chunk, go find my damned hat.”
The dog whined slightly, tail wagging one way then the other at a lazy pace. She then sneezed and trotted back off to the ditch they’d just crawled out of. She started to snort and sniff around, ending up with an enthusiastic flump onto the ground with another snort.
What a useless creature.
Mabel finally got the breath back, not to mention the presence of mind, to check over the bike. There was a rattle or two and some odd lookin spots, but if she were lucky enough those were just things she could fix when she got home and wouldn’t have to bother onna the others for.
She threw her leg back over the bike, and hollered, “Chunk! You find my hat yet?”
The dog stopped rolling around in the grass to look back at her. Chunk’s tail flumped once onto the ground, then she got up, picking up the hat. It was dripping wet, and so was chunk. Great, she was gonna haveta hose both of them off. Her daddy would be having a good laugh right now, that was certain.
Mabel took the hat, shook it out and put it back on over her pointed ears.
“If I gotta go to the hospital again this week because of a reclamation truck, again, I am not gonna live it down from my damn doctor.”
She pushed off on the bike, slow going at first because not only was it loaded down with some detris the city had asked for, but it also had a trailer that was loaded down with green matter that the hospital had asked for and there were some cotton plants on there that the factory had wanted to see if the wild grown field was gonna be any good for harvesting from because they’d done gone and stripped all their others bare of nutriants, the good mana and even the bad mana.
Lucky the gate wasn’t too far off and she got there before she felt dizzy enough to collapse. It was still open cause it was still daylight though once they saw her comin they could have just closed the gate on her. They did do it once, too. Was a new kid, other guards made him eat Mabel’s government given rations for a week and she got his. Then they made him apologize to her for disrupting the flow of city work and for being a little racist ass canoe.
She stopped just inside the check point and leaned on the handle bars.
“Rough ride, miss Mabel?” One of the guards wandered over and helped steady the bike.
“Gorram reclamation truck dun knocked me on my ass again.”
“I bet I know who was drivin,” he replied. “Anythin in the pockets we gotta worry about?”
“Only iffn you’re wantin to make Granny Howell angry. You know how much she hates it when you boys mess with ‘er samples.”
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“Oh I know, we got a good yelling at for that the last time,” another said. He held out a hand. Gloved, of course. “You’re not looking so well, Miss Mabel.”
“Can’t catch my breath,” she responded. She took his hand just long enough to get help off the bike. She stumbled and he almost went to catch her, but remembered what she was first.
“We need to go and call your doctor for ya? Doctor Scott told us to call him if you come on into the check point out of breath.”
Mabel waved her hand “Nah, just still have my heart poundin from that reclamation truck. Thought they was supposed to be turnin that off on main roads.”
“Well, around people,” The first replied. They started to paw though the bags. “Anythin' hazardous this time?”
“Got a couple of jars I pulled offa a dead tardog,” Mabel replied. “Figured I’d take the chance, it was fresh dead.”
“Thought I smelt swamp.” The young man shuffled through. “What’d you bring through for taxes?”
Mabel leaned on her saddle, watching. “You should damn well know by now I pack all that up on the top so y’all don’ go breaking or crushing other things.”
“Well, what is it?”
Mabel looked at him from under the rim of her hat. “I dun told you every time I’ve been though here over the years, now haven’t I?”
He frowned a little. “Yes ma’am. Sorry ma’am.”
She waved to the top of the trailer. “Well, found a good patch of it. Should last y’all a bit. Don’t know when I’ll be able to go on out again.”
He was quiet as he took the large bundle off of the top of the pile. Boy was getting sentimental on her and that wasn’t gonna look good for the kid once the next review came around cause he was being sentimental about her.
“We appreciate it, Miss Mabel.” He replied finally. “We really do. You go on and you get some rest.”
“Yeah, you look like you need it. You want my momma to come around with somethin for Chunk later?”
“Admit I wouldn’t mind,” Mabel replied. “Didn’t really find no good meat out there.”
Chunk barked once, and wagged her tail. Dog loved havin meat and was probably onna the few in town that got it on the regular. Mabel could afford it when it was around. That boy’s momma ran the market.
“I’ll let her know,” he replied. Mabel nodded to him. “You’re free to go on in, Miss Mabel.”
She nodded again and said, “Y’all behave yerselves. Don’t want to hear about any more late night drunken parties up on toppa the factory roof. Gets people killed.”
“Oh no ma’am,” both replied. The second added, “We’ve learned our lession, hand to god. No more drinking when we’re supposed to be keeping the factory safe.”
“Good,” she replied. “Take care.”
She walked in.
“Wait!”
The second guard followed behind a few steps, saying, “Momma says one of your hens stopped laying, so she brought it on home just in case she was sick. Said the vet looked her over and she’s got herself some kind of chicken disease. Don’t worry about nothin, though. Momma says you haven’t got to worry about payin nothing.”
Mabel nodded. In name, they were his momma’s hens anyway. She just didn’t feel like taking care of them and had started pawning the job off on her Daddy. They got some of the eggs, little bit of money. Most of the city called the chickens Mabel’s though, on account of the fact she named them all and they were too onery to listen to anyone else.
“Thank ya,” she replies. “I’ll come and I’ll check in on ‘er before tonight.”
“You really should go rest,” the first guard said. “Please, Miss Mabel? You ain’t looking so good.”
“I’m FINE,” she replied. She waved her hand at them. “Don’t worry none about me, cause you’ll lose your jobs.”
“No we won’t. You’re practically a human, Miss Mabel.” The second said. “Ain’t no one going to yell at us for talkin to you.”
Mabel wished she knew just how much those damn words stung every time they said them. Practically human herself. Well weren’t her fault that she was born as an elf now was it?
Mabel kept her mouth shut, though, and made her way into the city proper.
It was a quiet place this time of day. It was still first shift at the factory when the most people were workin, and kids were still in school for the day. She didn’t know what in the world they were learning save they didn’t apply it none. She didn’t go to that school as a girl cause they didn’t like her kind learning with them.
Anyone who was out ran a shop, were unfit to work, or were lucky enough that they didn’t have to. Mabel often got looked at like she was one of those that was lucky enough to not work but they had no idea what went into pulling all that out of wreckage and corruptions.
Mabel made her way around the streets, stopping to drop off what the city had asked her to pick up, then all the other things. She could feel herself getting weak and that wasn’t good, because she had things that she had to go and get done before she could rest. Chunk trotted along beside her, still panting. All along the way, the people who saw her kept telling her seh wasn’t lookin good, and she was pretty sure that one of the nurses from the hospital told Mabel she needed to get in right away, but Mabel waved her off.
There was the chickens to feed, and Chunk needed that hosing off, and she was pretty sure that the bike needed work. She’d been away for a while so she had to check in on the garden because she was gonna be hungry. She paused just in front of an intersection and leaned on the bike. Why was it so gorram hard to catch her breath again? She’d done fixed this already. She looked up at her last stop for the day. The hospital.
Of course it was the hospital. She felt like she was gonna collapse right on outside of the damn thing and it was her last stop for the day. Mabel took a few moments to try and catch her breath again, and pushed on forward with the bicycle. Only had to cross a street and walk on up to the door, then she could go on home and take care of what she had to take care of there.