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henaultrs



Saturday, 16. October 2010

"You take tomorrow off," she saidShe raised a...

By henaultrs, 10:05
"You take tomorrow off," she saidShe raised a hand goodbye and went down the stairs Lina took advantage of her day off to go to the Supply Depot to see Lizzie BiscoLizzie was quick and smartShe might have some good ideas At the Supply Depot, crowds of shopkeepers stood in long, disorderly lines that stretched out the doorThey pushed and jostled and snapped impatiently at each otherLina joined them, but they seemed so frantic that they frightened her a littleThey must be very sure now that the supplies are running out, she thought, and they're determined to get what they can before it's too late When she got close to the head of the line, she heard the same conversation omega replica watches several times"Sorry," the clerk would say when a shopkeeper asked for ten packets of sewing needles, or a dozen drinking glasses, or twenty packages of light bulbs"There's a severe shortage of that itemYou can have only one Or else the clerk would say, "SorryWe're out of that entirely "Forever?" "Forever Lina knew that it hadn't always been this wayWhen Ember was a young city, the storerooms were fullThey held everything the citizens could want--so much it seemed the supplies would never run out 100 Lina's grandmother had told her that schoolchildren were given a tour of the storerooms as part of their educationThey took an elevator from the street level to a long, vintage cartier watch curving tunnel with doors on both sides and other tunnels branching off itThe guide led the tour down the long passages, opening one door after another"This area," he would say, "is Canned GoodsNext we come to School SuppliesAnd around this bend we have KitchenwareNext come Carpentry Tools At each door, the children crowded against each other to see "Every room had something different," Granny told Lina"Boxes of toothpaste in one roomBottles of cooking oilBoxes of pills--there were twenty rooms just for vitamin pillsOne room was stacked with hundreds of cans of fruitThere was something called pineapple, I remember that one especially "What was pineapple?" asked Lina "It was chanel shopping bags yellow and sweet," said Granny with a dreamy look in her eyes"I had it four times before we ran out of it But these tours had been discontinued long before Lina was bornThe storerooms, people said, were no longer a pleasure to look atTheir dusty shelves stood mostly empty nowIt was rumored that in some rooms nothing was left at allA child seeing the rooms where powdered milk had been stored, or the rooms that 101 stored bandages or socks or pins or notebooks, or-- most of all--the dozens of rooms that had once held thousands of light bulbs--would not feel, as earlier generations of children had, that Ember was endlessly richToday's children, if they were to tour the replica tiffany jewelry storerooms, would feel afraid Thinking about all this, Lina waited in the line of people at Lizzie's stationWhen she got to the front, she leaned forward with her elbows on the counter and whispered, "Lizzie, can you meet me after you're through with work? I'll wait for you right outside the door Lizzie nodded eagerly At four o'clock, Lizzie came trotting out the office doorLina said to her, "Will you come home with me for a minute? I want to show you something "Sure," said Lizzie, and as they walked, Lizzie talked"My wrist is killing me from writing all day," she said"You have to write in the tiniest letters to save paper, so I get a terrible cramp in my wrist and omega seamaster de ville my fingers