The sun shone brightly, its warm glow only marred by the occasional passing cloud clusters. Below its domain, in the reclaimed stagnant waters of the swamp, a new kingdom arose and dared to break through the celestial firmament.
On the backs of goblins, a human, and two short people, the new kingdom of fun and amusement grew. Plank by plank, rail spike by rail spike.
In the outwards sections of the park and platform, the remains of the previous attempts at statecraft still remained. The burnt wooden wreckage soaking and becoming one with the dank and rank waters, of a land all others had shunned.
Yet the failure did nothing to wane the spirit of its workers. Despite it, in the weeks-old ruins emerged a towering shadow. It rose up from the new platform, a great railtrack of wood and metal.
The railtrack was supported on the spines of wooden triangular trusses and the sunlight peered through the gaps in it, casting an intricate pattern of diamonds and triangles upon its neighboring swampy domain.
The railtrack lifted from the platform, creating large swerving hills, sharp turns, and daring loops that for now dropped to nothingness; but greatest of all and most imposing of the new kingdom was the mountain.
It was a singular railclimb in the middle of the cart’s journey. It jutted out from a previous hill and climbed upwards in a near vertical ascent, high, high, high into the clouds themselves. It disappeared periodically in the firmament as the passing cloud clusters obscured its summit, shadowing the horror, the anxiety, the awe and excitement of its equally vertical drop back into the main path of the roller coaster.
Yet, unlike all other sections, it remained quiet and empty. There was no hammering, no singing, and no work besides the most basic of foundations laid upon it. For no squad or goblin had yet dared to work and ascend to the mountain’s summit.
On the rest of the coaster, the goblin workers remained hard at work.
“Team swap! Team yellow on the clock!” the aged goblin, Axel, cried out as he walked along the tracks of the coaster. His safety, and all other goblins who passed him for the team swap, was assured by great stretchy cables that connected every worker’s waist to a sliding mechanism along the rail's metal tracks.
Its effectiveness was proven by the daily display of dangling goblins along the railtrack.
“Gommisar, help me please!” a hanging goblin worker cried out, swaying along to the breeze of the wind.
“Nuh-uh. Color first,” Axel called out, staring from the edge of the rail to the suspended goblin. Both were too far from the tracks and most definitely too far from the ground.
“I'm with pink squad,” the worker eked out as he displayed his pink colored scarf to the aged Gommisar Axel.
“Pink squad, let me see ...” Axel said, leafing through his spreadsheet. The noise of the bundle of paper rivaled that of the creaking metal as a source of fear for the dangling goblin worker. “Ha. I see. You are currently on break for the rest of the day,” he said, leering at the struggling goblin below, who tried in vain to lift himself.
“Oh c'mon, gommisar! I have been stuck here since morning. Please just pull me up!”
“My concern is with the steady progress of the park! Please, don't bother me again while you are on break. I have many other sectors to check,” Axel responded with a rather indignant tone, placing his treasured sheet underneath his arm and leaving the goblin to dangle.
“The union will hear of this!” screamed the goblin.
Axel laughed. “Not if you stay there! Enjoy your break.”
#
The safety gommisar continued his way along the railtracks, climbing and sliding atop the metal rails.
As the gommisar progressed closer to the vanguard of labor, he heard the banging of metal meshed with whistling and the rhythmic call of two non-goblin voices.
He stood atop the track’s hill and saw that below it, in the depression that marked the end of the rail, the high-spirited orange squad labored to extend and construct the foundations of the railway.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Song, whistling, and calls shrilled amidst the gaveling of the hammer against the railspike.
“Op!”
“Ho!”
“Op!”
“Ho!”
“Op!”
“Ho!”
The gnome brothers let out from the edge of the track as they struck the wood and metal beams. Their fellow goblin workers then cemented the beams in place, answering in unison.
“Ay!”
“Ey!”
“Ay!”
“Ey!”
“Ay!”
“Ey!”
Axel looked in wonder at the progress and the rhythmic organization of the squad. The tracks were laid with a machine-like precision. This squad was clearly outpacing and outdoing any other squad in his spreadsheet.
He slid down the track and as he got closer, he could hear the full composition of the workers song.
“Op! Ey!”
“Ho! Ay!”
“Op! Ey!”
“Ho! Ay!”
“Op! Ey!”
“Ho! Ay!”
He was entranced by it. The harmony of voices meshed with the sound of hammers striking against the wood and metal. It called to him, almost urging him to join the glorious march of labor and progress.
The call of the spreadsheet, however, was louder. It screamed at him! For the true order and authority lay with his math and the numbers he wielded. It demanded silence and complete subjugation to the schedule. The march of progress, impressive and alluring as it may be, was way ahead of schedule.
“Too much progress! They'll ruin the agenda!” The thought emerged from the spreadsheet and into Axel's head.
The gommisar had had enough. He steadied himself, breathed in, and screamed at the top of his lungs to drown out the song. “Stop! It's break time!”
The yell cut through the harmony of the workers, sending them stumbling against one another as the call became jumbled.
“Oh yaeoey!” Ini let out as he felt the weight of the goblins falling against him.
The goblins piled and pushed against one another, egged on by the order of the safety gommisar. Their weight and momentum pulled and threatened the integrity of the safety cables they relied on.
The workers rolled and fell on each other. At the front of it, the two brothers hurriedly pushed against the roll and prevented the entire squad from falling over the railings.
Yet the worst still happened, for a dreaded noise only matched by the gommisar’s voice cut through the chaos of the sudden halt of the worker train— -- the tear and snap of a cable. It was only made worse by the scream from a goblin who quickly vanished below the railtracks.
“Goblin down!” Ini yelled out as he alone now prevented the rest of his squad from falling down the tracks.
“On it!” Ono answered, quickly glancing over the rest of the squad and loosening his own cable from the jumbled mess. He leaped from the safety of the tracks, piercing through the air to save his goblin co-worker.
“What's he doing?!” Axel yelled as he saw the short person reach critical velocity, his arms outreached as he grasped on to the fallen goblin. Then, right before they could hit the ground, a call came from the newly regrouped squad.
“Now!” Ini screamed and the orange squad brought their full force together and pulled on Ono's cables.
The whiplash from the sudden change of momentum coursed through the cable toward the rescue. As Ono hugged the fallen goblin, he felt the great force pulling against his insides. His mind became dizzy as they quickly made their ascent and he let out a maniacal laugh. The goblin in his arms remained silent in both stunned shock and fear over his fall and rescue.
The duo hovered for a moment above the tracks as their fateful ascent reached its zenith. Then, without losing a second, with a simple cry of “Grab them!” from Ini, the squad reached out for their fellow workers and finally brought them to safety.
Ono let go of the goblin, who simply stood in place. He was frozen in shock from the rush of adrenaline.
“Nicely done!”
“Good job Ono!”
The goblins praised and congratulated the short person as he dismissed them. “No no, good job everyone! That was a group effort.”
The goblins smiled and nodded in agreement. Among them, Ini remained deep in thought, moving toward his brother as he said, “You know, that gives me an idea for another ride ...”
“Enough lollygagging!” Axel's voice echoed. He moved closer to the group, berating them as the goblins’s smiles suddenly vanished. “You orange squad unit are way, way ahead of schedule! You need to take a break or else you are gonna ruin everyone's progress. And if we want this done right, we need to stay on the program!”
The workers grumbled and leered at the supposed safety gommisar as he jeered back, “Don't give me that look! Go on now, get out of here. You have the rest of the day off.”
He gestured and slowly the orange squad began to roll out, following the railtracks back toward the ground level platform as they grabbed their still-frozen coworker and carried him to safety.
“Not you two,” Axel said, raising his arm and stopping the brothers from joining in with their goblin gomrades.
“Something wrong, gommisar?”
“I suppose it was unsafe of us to try to rescue our coworker?” both Ini and Ono said as they looked in disapproval at the old goblin's oversight.
He held his spreadsheet and said in a tired tone, “No, no. I have special orders for you.” He took a piece of paper from his clipboard and gave it to the brothers.
“This has Figwit's signature.” Ini said.
“Oh and Ivy's,” the brothers said as they noticed the scribble on it.
Axel added, “And the stamp of our glorious union chairgob, Lemin. I don't know why, but your presence is requested by all three down at the planning center above the goblin quarters. And since you are done for today, I advise you two to get there at once.”
“Of course. We'll head there right away.”
“Oh, and thank you so much for your safety oversight, Gommisar Axel,” Ini and Ono said, giving a mock union salute to the aged goblin. He was left alone atop the tracks, grumbling to himself.
He heard the whistling noise of the wind, kicked over the faulty safety cables from the tracks, mumbling and mumbled a frustrated curse. “Smartasses ...”