Lead Poisoning
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Harriet pulled her hoodie closer to her face. Despite the fact that her golden hair was entirely hidden and that her lab coat, which stuck out beneath her polyester outer garment, masked all of her curves, she felt exposed. Even the simplicity of her orthopedic-looking shoes and the unnuanced quality of her stride failed to provide comfort.
Harriet glanced neither at the ground nor at the sky. She used no Ipod or cell phone and whistled no happy tune. Nonetheless, they pulled up next to her. With great punctuality, the dented jalopy slid next to the sidewalk. Young men issued from its windows. In two different languages, they called out “Missy,” and “Girly.”
Harriet looked forward and walked accordingly. Her cheeks brightened. Her eyes sprung tears. Every time she traveled to and from work, they taunted her.
No other young women, whether sassy redhead or deep brunette, dark hued or light, tall and wide, or short and thin, received similar humiliation twice a day.
Until she grew wings, Harriet would continue on as the object of their mockery. No buses served the site of the region’s lone manufacturing plant. No private vehicle fit into Harriet’s modest salary. Only the sidewalk, which wound from Harriett’s caravan to the Higher, Further and Farther Company, where she worked as a bench scientist, could transport her.
Other than the upset she suffered from the wayward young men, Harriet was content. She labored at helping Higher, Further and Farther retain its world class standing as a manufacturer of small, impossibly expensive widgets. Harriet specialized in identifying compounds capable of containing hydrogen fluoride. Her colleagues treated her well.
When not working, Harriet enjoyed Barney, her parakeet, a songmeister willing to perform except when his seed box was empty. She also took pleasure in the view of expansive sky and of a portion of the Bitterroot Mountains, which filled her lone picture window and which was too beautiful to be captured even on postcards. Plus, the corner grocery store carried her favorite breakfast cereal.
Sometimes, Harriet would take her leave of Barney and of the view to join Higher, Further and Farther’s scientists in the wilderness. The group would fish, roast beer cans and to look at a ceiling of stars unlike any they had known when attending MIT or Cal Poly. During those trips though, Harriet remained at a loss as whether to sit and chat with her peers’ toddler-laden wives or to go a field, literally, and to seek to identify rock species with her colleagues.
Often, Harriet compromised, electing to stay close to camp with the other women, but choosing, concurrently, to add to her rock collection. It was in that fashion that Harriett had successfully gathered flakes of silver, shards of talc, a very small gold nugget and a large specimen of vermiculite. That vermiculite, in fact, had become the basis of her most recent bonus; Harriet had suggested to a lead scientist that the element might be useful, bonded with sodium silicate, as a high temperature insulator.
Consequently, Harriet had conducted a series of experiments involving her pouring hydrofluoric acid into aggregates of sodium silicate mixed with vermiculite. Thus far, she had burned a hole in her favorite work table, in her lab coat and in the heel of one shoe. Though she arrived at work at dawn and stayed until dusk, a means of stabilizing her solution eluded her.
Harriet’s scholarly frustrations were compounded by the shortened days of winter. Since she was entirely unwilling to walk home at night, she set up a lab at home. Surreptitiously, she began to convey small amounts of hydrofluoric acid. Every time she filled her container, a vessel resistant to that fluid’s reactivity, she thought about ways to replicate that container on an industrial scale.
One sunset, when Harriet’s mind overflowed with the minutia of her latest attempt to create an inexpensive substance with which to hold hydrofluoric acid, Harriet failed to register that she was being followed by the auto of jeering boys. They cat called and tooted, waved in exaggerated gesture and otherwise were more insistent and louder than ordinary. Nonetheless, Harriet remained mired in her mental mathematics.
When at last Harriet realized that the young hoodlums were once more trying to provoke her, she responded as though she were a somnambulist. She reached into her front pocket, where she had illicitly stored a vial, and, without so much of a conscious thought, lobbed the container at the boys’ car.
Upon impact, the polyethylene tube, meant to hold caustic acid, but not to resist shipping problems, imploded. Pieces of the projectile flew into the air and the innocent-looking liquid began to seep out. Some of that liquid spilled on the toughies nearest it. Some of that liquid dripped into the hole, which it had already purchased in the dashboard, onto the engine below.
Afterwards, Harriet made a permanent visit to her sister in Milwaukee. It was not so much that she minded that she had damaged the thugs’ aluminum-silicon engine blocks as it was that she was a bit concerned that the youths might retaliate. They suffered third degree burns. One ruffian had gone into cardiac arrest, too.
Thus it was that Harriet found herself walking along a different sidewalk en route to a new job at USA Poison Management, an organization housed in Milwaukee County’s Research Park. Harriet was now responsible for finding alternatives to polyethylene glycol and gastric lavage. She just wished she could get the cyclists to stop bothering her.
- - -
KJ Hannah Greenberg and her hibernaculum of pretend hedgehogs roam the verbal hinterlands. Sylvan creatures to a one, they fashion stories from leaves, shiny bugs and marshmallow fluff. Some of the homes for their writing have included: AlienSkin Magazine, AntipodeanSF, Bards and Sages, Big Pulp, Morpheus Tales, Strange, Weird and Wonderful, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction, and The New Absurdist. When not disciplining her imaginary friends, Hannah serves as an associate editor for Bewildering Stories and writes literary criticism for Tangent.
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Harriet pulled her hoodie closer to her face. Despite the fact that her golden hair was entirely hidden and that her lab coat, which stuck out beneath her polyester outer garment, masked all of her curves, she felt exposed. Even the simplicity of her orthopedic-looking shoes and the unnuanced quality of her stride failed to provide comfort.
Harriet glanced neither at the ground nor at the sky. She used no Ipod or cell phone and whistled no happy tune. Nonetheless, they pulled up next to her. With great punctuality, the dented jalopy slid next to the sidewalk. Young men issued from its windows. In two different languages, they called out “Missy,” and “Girly.”
Harriet looked forward and walked accordingly. Her cheeks brightened. Her eyes sprung tears. Every time she traveled to and from work, they taunted her.
No other young women, whether sassy redhead or deep brunette, dark hued or light, tall and wide, or short and thin, received similar humiliation twice a day.
Until she grew wings, Harriet would continue on as the object of their mockery. No buses served the site of the region’s lone manufacturing plant. No private vehicle fit into Harriet’s modest salary. Only the sidewalk, which wound from Harriett’s caravan to the Higher, Further and Farther Company, where she worked as a bench scientist, could transport her.
Other than the upset she suffered from the wayward young men, Harriet was content. She labored at helping Higher, Further and Farther retain its world class standing as a manufacturer of small, impossibly expensive widgets. Harriet specialized in identifying compounds capable of containing hydrogen fluoride. Her colleagues treated her well.
When not working, Harriet enjoyed Barney, her parakeet, a songmeister willing to perform except when his seed box was empty. She also took pleasure in the view of expansive sky and of a portion of the Bitterroot Mountains, which filled her lone picture window and which was too beautiful to be captured even on postcards. Plus, the corner grocery store carried her favorite breakfast cereal.
Sometimes, Harriet would take her leave of Barney and of the view to join Higher, Further and Farther’s scientists in the wilderness. The group would fish, roast beer cans and to look at a ceiling of stars unlike any they had known when attending MIT or Cal Poly. During those trips though, Harriet remained at a loss as whether to sit and chat with her peers’ toddler-laden wives or to go a field, literally, and to seek to identify rock species with her colleagues.
Often, Harriet compromised, electing to stay close to camp with the other women, but choosing, concurrently, to add to her rock collection. It was in that fashion that Harriett had successfully gathered flakes of silver, shards of talc, a very small gold nugget and a large specimen of vermiculite. That vermiculite, in fact, had become the basis of her most recent bonus; Harriet had suggested to a lead scientist that the element might be useful, bonded with sodium silicate, as a high temperature insulator.
Consequently, Harriet had conducted a series of experiments involving her pouring hydrofluoric acid into aggregates of sodium silicate mixed with vermiculite. Thus far, she had burned a hole in her favorite work table, in her lab coat and in the heel of one shoe. Though she arrived at work at dawn and stayed until dusk, a means of stabilizing her solution eluded her.
Harriet’s scholarly frustrations were compounded by the shortened days of winter. Since she was entirely unwilling to walk home at night, she set up a lab at home. Surreptitiously, she began to convey small amounts of hydrofluoric acid. Every time she filled her container, a vessel resistant to that fluid’s reactivity, she thought about ways to replicate that container on an industrial scale.
One sunset, when Harriet’s mind overflowed with the minutia of her latest attempt to create an inexpensive substance with which to hold hydrofluoric acid, Harriet failed to register that she was being followed by the auto of jeering boys. They cat called and tooted, waved in exaggerated gesture and otherwise were more insistent and louder than ordinary. Nonetheless, Harriet remained mired in her mental mathematics.
When at last Harriet realized that the young hoodlums were once more trying to provoke her, she responded as though she were a somnambulist. She reached into her front pocket, where she had illicitly stored a vial, and, without so much of a conscious thought, lobbed the container at the boys’ car.
Upon impact, the polyethylene tube, meant to hold caustic acid, but not to resist shipping problems, imploded. Pieces of the projectile flew into the air and the innocent-looking liquid began to seep out. Some of that liquid spilled on the toughies nearest it. Some of that liquid dripped into the hole, which it had already purchased in the dashboard, onto the engine below.
Afterwards, Harriet made a permanent visit to her sister in Milwaukee. It was not so much that she minded that she had damaged the thugs’ aluminum-silicon engine blocks as it was that she was a bit concerned that the youths might retaliate. They suffered third degree burns. One ruffian had gone into cardiac arrest, too.
Thus it was that Harriet found herself walking along a different sidewalk en route to a new job at USA Poison Management, an organization housed in Milwaukee County’s Research Park. Harriet was now responsible for finding alternatives to polyethylene glycol and gastric lavage. She just wished she could get the cyclists to stop bothering her.
- - -
KJ Hannah Greenberg and her hibernaculum of pretend hedgehogs roam the verbal hinterlands. Sylvan creatures to a one, they fashion stories from leaves, shiny bugs and marshmallow fluff. Some of the homes for their writing have included: AlienSkin Magazine, AntipodeanSF, Bards and Sages, Big Pulp, Morpheus Tales, Strange, Weird and Wonderful, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction, and The New Absurdist. When not disciplining her imaginary friends, Hannah serves as an associate editor for Bewildering Stories and writes literary criticism for Tangent.
0 Responses
Post a Comment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
