Trolley Pushers

by Acologic

Part 1: The Store – VIII

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Gat,’ said the voice on the Com, and Ale closed his eyes, sighing internally. ‘What’s all this about a pothole? You’ve reported it twice.’

‘Have I? Wait, no, I reported it once. East reported it earlier.’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘... Well, because it’s our job –’

‘No. It’s your job to report it once. East would only report it if you hadn’t passed it on in the handover booklet. So I now know that you, Ale, haven’t been communicating with the team properly.’

‘But she reported a different pothole,’ said Ale as levelly as he could. ‘Not the one you fixed.’

‘I didn’t fix a pothole.’

‘The one you had fixed, then.’

‘I didn’t have one fixed.’

Ale wasn’t sure if Gat was being serious or testing him. ‘But... what about the one I reported?’

‘What about it?’

‘Well... it’s not there anymore.’

‘Oh, really? So what did East report?’

‘A pothole by the trolley hut. Mine was next to recycling.’

‘East didn’t say where the pothole was.’

‘Well, I can’t say what she said. I wasn’t there to –’

‘I’m sending somepony to fill it, so let’s settle this. Is it by recycling?’ said Gat as if he were addressing a child. ‘Or is it by the trolley hut? You tell me.’

‘But there are two!’ said Ale a little too loudly, which he regretted and compensated for by softening his tone. ‘One by recycling and one by the trolley hut.’

‘Didn’t you just tell me the one supposedly by recycling was fixed? So now you’re changing your story again.’

‘But it was fixed. East took back the cone I placed on it.’

‘Did you see it fixed?’

‘Well... yes-ish. Not personally.’ Ale couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to look down at the ground where it had been on his last shift. ‘I would have seen it while doing the trolleys if it was still there.’

‘Did you see it or didn’t you? I don’t have time to waste on this.’

At that comment, the anger really came running hot. Ale couldn’t believe the nerve of the pony, calling him after his shift when he was at home, outside his jurisdiction, and demanding answers to something as trivial as a pothole that he had reported. It really was beyond a joke. But rather than shout, rather than visibly lose his temper, which would have been completely justified, as always, Ale relented, and he said in a monotone, ‘I didn’t actually see it.’

‘So where should I be sending the pony to fix this pothole?’

‘Next to the trolley hut,’ said Ale dully, wondering why he didn’t just push on and stick to his story. The thing was, he lost either way. If he went back to insisting there was a pothole by recycling, which there was, or had been, Gat would ask why he was changing the story again, and he’d be for it. If he let it go and Gat found out that there was still a pothole by recycling, he’d be for it. Ale was certain it was fixed. East wouldn’t have brought back the cone for nothing. Unless, and his stomach squirmed at the thought, somepony had moved the cone. But he didn’t want an argument now, so he simply kept his mouth shut as Gat went on.

‘Tomorrow Hull is coming on with you.’

‘Hull?’

‘One of the new starts.’

‘But I thought it was just me on the rota tomorrow.’

‘Which is why I’m telling you now that he’s going to be on with you,’ said Gat as though Ale was a difficult idiot he wasn’t being paid enough to deal with. ‘He’s never done trolleys officially, so make sure he knows how to use the Com and the handover booklet, and you start using it too.’

‘Will do. What time is he coming in?’

‘Same as you. That’s all. Goodbye.’

‘Bye, G—’

His Com beeped off and Ale set it down, sighing. Just his luck, to have to deal with a new start. It wasn’t that he especially disliked new starts, but he did dislike having to explain things to them or anyone. That, and meeting new ponies was always a negative. It was tiresome. It was tedious. It was painful. As if trolleys wasn’t all three things already. Though one redeeming quality of new starts was that they were typically quiet, sharing the trolleys on an off-peak day meant, at the very least, a lot of standing around. A lot more boredom, and for that if nothing else, Ale felt animosity toward the faceless Hull he’d yet to meet. It wasn’t the latter’s fault, but he was, like it or not, complicit simply because he was working there too. Ale knew that this was him feeling sorry for himself. He knew he was being unfair. But that didn’t help him feel any better about it.

He fell backwards onto his bed, staring up at the blank white ceiling and vowing he’d have a long, productive and thoroughly enjoyable day off when it came. But he knew he probably wouldn’t.