Grease and oil permeated every pore of Tarn's skin. Where skin wrinkled around his knuckles there was caked dirt, or perhaps old blood, while his nails were rough and cracked and ragged. Stench clung to him, lingering around his body hair, between his toes, behind his ears. They were permitted to wash only once every two weeks, and even then only for the briefest time. His head was nearly bald, shaved unevenly down to the scalp, with dried cuts and scars testament to the lack of care.
Tarn wasn't his name. His given name was Fiffdeewun, but he didn't understand what that meant and didn't like the way it sounded. Everyone here had a given name, one which was used to summon them, to punish them, to instill fear. If he heard his name, it meant pain. He would be called awake by his name, woken in his cramped, scraped-out hole. He'd descend with all the others and line up on the red, sandy floor as the guards inspected them and spoke their names, one after another. Fordeyate, Fordeynayn, Fiffdee. He didn't know why Fiffdee had a shorter name, or why it sounded like his own. The guard would shout his name and stand too close, almost touching noses, and would stare into his eyes. Later, at the machines, if he slowed his pace he'd hear his given name ring out through the chamber. "Fiffdeewun!" That would mean lashes. If he let the machine get too hot or made a mistake, the shout would come again. If it was a bad mistake it could mean going in the pit.
He didn't like his given name. He didn't like that it sounded like Fiffdee's name, even though Fiffdee was his friend. That's why he'd made up a new name and given it all to himself. The name 'Tarn' had come to him in a dream one night and he'd liked it. He didn't know what it meant and he'd never told anyone else about it. But he liked it. The name helped him feel calm and relaxed, even in this place. Nobody could take it away.
Each time as they stood in a line at the base of the sleeping wall, another set of workers would arrive and spread out along it, before clambering up the wobbly wooden ladders and into the narrow holes, each only slightly deeper than a man's height. The same boy always slept in Tarn's space. Tarn didn't like that someone else used his sleeping place but he had no choice in the matter, and at least the other boy would make sure the hole was looked after until he got back. He'd never met the other boy and didn't even know his name but it would stop anyone from stealing the hole.
Fiffdee was Tarn's friend. They stood next to each other when they were in the line and they'd often work on the same machines. He was a good friend. When they worked together they got the job done faster which the guards seemed to like. Whenever Tarn worked fast he didn't get a beating, so he always tried to be quick and efficient. It didn't seem very fair, as when he was slower it wasn't usually his fault. There was nothing you could do if a machine broke and stopped moving, as you'd have to wait for someone to come and try to fix it.
Once a boy had tried to fix Tarn's machine by climbing inside it to see what was wrong. All the pistons and wheels had got stuck, which meant Tarn wasn't able to do his work and it was causing problems for everyone else. Tarn didn't know how to fix this machine, so the guards had sent in this other boy. Tarn thought that perhaps he'd pulled the wrong lever or turned a dial too fast, which might have caused it to get stuck, but he didn't tell anyone because he didn't want to get a beating.
Clattering noises emerged from inside the machine as the other boy worked. It sounded like he was moving parts around and maybe replacing something. He got the machine working again, because he was one of the best at doing that, and the wheels started going around again and the pistons pumped and cogs clacked and clicked but the boy was still inside and there was a scream and then blood started seeping out of all the gaps in the machine. As the valves opened they squirted blood into the air, covering Tarn's face where he stood.
"Machine's up and running!" a guard shouted, ignoring the red. "Fiffdeewun - stop standing there and get back to work now."
That day was messy and Tarn got covered in lots of blood as he worked but he got the work done, faster than ever, as all the dials went all the way over into the orange area but without tipping into the dangerous part.
He didn't see the fixer boy again. Sometimes when the blood came out of the machines they didn't see the fixers again. Tarn wondered whether the machines had to eat the fixers to start working again, just like he had to eat to have his strength. If that was why, it wasn't really the machine's fault.
Tarn was glad he wasn't a fixer, though.
It wasn't an easy life, working the machines, but it was probably better than being in the mines, down in the dark, twisting maze of tunnels that spread out from the machine rooms in all directions. At least around the machinery there was light, from the lanterns high up on the rocky ceiling and the torches held by the guards. Tarn had never worked down in the mines but he'd heard the guards talk about them, and they were always trying to trade shifts with each other so that they didn't have to go. Tarn didn't really know what trade was but that's what they called it.
The boys worked the machines every day, all day. Up they got, out of their coffins - that's what the guards called their sleeping holes - and down to the caverns where the machines were kept. They marched in, then split off to find their places. Some of the older, bigger boys would go up on the gantries, where there was more room, while the younger boys would go down in the wells and the sunken gutters, where it was noisiest and dirtiest. It was only the small boys that could fit into the really tiny spaces. Tarn was somewhere in-between, so he didn't have to go down into the gratings under the floor anymore and spent most of his time on the first level, where the really big levers and buttons and pulleys were kept. His job was important. If he didn't do his job properly, the machines would get hot and angry, and might even destroy the whole world. That's what the guards said.
Tarn wasn't sure why that would be so bad, as the world seemed quite small and not very nice, but the guards thought it was important and they were much more clever.
One of the older boys, so old that he was hairy on his face and wrinkly on his arms, would come round halfway through the day's work carrying buckets over his shoulders, attached to a wide wooden plank. As he passed each worker they could take a drink of water from the buckets, if there was any left. Sometimes the buckets would already be empty, either from others taking too much or from the carrier spilling it as he made his way up and down the rough steps cut into the stone floor. Even when there was still water, it would be full of dirt and dust.
When the bell rang out to signal the end of the shift Tarn joined the others as they shuffled out of the chamber, arms aching, shoulders stiff, knuckles bloodied and elbows bruised. Nobody finished a shift without some kind of injury, even if it was only a cut to a finger. Some people lost whole arms or legs and didn't come back the next time.
Before sleep they were always taken to the food hall, where they were seated on long benches and given bowls of bread, sometimes accompanied by soup. It was never much but Tarn was always grateful. Sitting in the food hall was his second favourite time. It was never long before the guards had them up and moving again, first past the trough where they could relieve themselves, then marching back to the sleeping wall where the other shift had already lined up, exactly as he had earlier. Tarn would find his ladder and climb up it when given the signal. Usually Fiffdee would climb into the hole next along, but recently he'd been missing at sleep time and would only reappear the next day, his face or hands covered in bruises. Tarn wanted to ask why but the guards didn't let them talk to each other.
He'd climb into his sleeping hole, ignoring the smell of the other boy who had been in there while he was working, and lie down on the filthy blanket. It was rarely cold, so he almost always slept on top of it - that way he could avoid the muck that gathered in clumps underneath.
It was the only moment Tarn had to himself, without the guards watching his every action. In his sleeping hole he had a tiny moment all to himself; his own little world, inside of which he constructed a new life. He imagined snow-capped mountains, hilltop lakes with views over an enormous valley, a castle perched atop a rock, and he saw a man, older, moving slowly through deep snow. The man held something long and metal in one hand. Tarn saw these images but didn't understand them, as he'd never known anything but the rock and metal and steam of the machine rooms. The thoughts confused him, each obscured beneath a fog of ignorance, without names or comprehension. They came only as he lay asleep in his coffin, eyes closed, mind adrift, sometimes accompanied by a distant, soft voice, calling out but too far away for him to hear the words. The dreams had been happening more frequently and more vividly of late, as if he was approaching some kind of new understanding, which nevertheless remained just out of reach.
So Tarn liked his coffin. It took him to places he'd never seen and never would see. Until he was woken by the shout of "Fiffdeewun!" it was his special place, where he could shut out the noise of the machines and the sweat and the dirt. As the other shift filed out of the room towards the machines, Tarn smiled contentedly, closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.