oh dear

Linda put her duster down and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The love crystal glowed bright blue in front of her even in the dim red light of her cigarette. The mine was cool enough, but dusting was hard work, and she needed a break.

She sat down on the metaphorically gray box behind her after wiping off a thin film of blue dust. You weren't supposed to sit on the boxes, but no one was around, and she'd only broken three of them this month. Another one wouldn't hurt too much. She pulled her pocket thesaurus out, and opened it to the bookmark. The pages were delicate, and stained with her tears, but she was gentle with them as she read in the dark. She took a drag on her cigarette, and the light in the room got brighter.

The mine was in bad shape ever since the love market had cooled down after the Pathetic Wars. Most of her friends had either quit or been laid off, and she had to move almost a six tons of love a day just to keep her head above water. She stopped reading for a moment, and thought about all the fun, sexy adventures she'd had in the past, the fantastic journeys, the thrilling thrills, and the passionate romances. The time she had learned the greatest lesson life could teach, the time she won a belching contest and saved the vice-mayor, the time she found a puppy while baking cookies. Now those were definitely some interesting, amazing stories.

But that was the past, and her life was over now. Twenty-six, she thought to herself, I'm twenty-six now. Just running out the clock in a haunted love mine. She looked down at the page; it was enough words for today, and she wanted to get this last bit of love loaded before it was time to go home, so she wiped off a tear, closed the thesaurus gingerly, and stuffed it back into her pocket. She stood up, and looked down at the gray box. She pushed an unbearably unremarkable red button on the front of it, but it did nothing. Damn, she thought, must have broken another one. But suddenly the box opened up, and a small arm reached out, wiping the dust off the box before it closed again.

She picked up the feather duster, and went back to the love crystal, brushing the rock at its base to free it from its granite tomb.