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UNDENTED
He received dented soda cans. The rejects. The ones nobody wanted. He had to, sort of, try his best to undent the things. Meld them back into shape, without spilling the stuff inside of them. Not one drop.
It was a thankless job, and a payless one, so the money wasn’t great. He did, however, have a nice little trophy in his office thanking him for twelve loyal years of service at the Aluminum Can Reformery. Oh, and he also had the office, where he slept. He supposed that was a perk. Not everyone had an office with a fold-out couch.
Once the cans were undented they would be shipped back out to retailers, domestic and international, and put on shelves for resale at a discounted rate. He supposed that was why they couldn’t afford to pay him here. They were hardly making any money on the heavily-discounted dented cans.
The money thing really didn’t bother him too much. After all, he had everything he needed here at the Reformery. Shelter, square meals delivered three times a day, and kinship with fellow Can Reformers. Virtual kinship. They were only ever allowed to communicate via text messages through company-approved devices. Sometimes words he typed wouldn’t look the same once he sent the message.
It wasn’t all that bad though. Twelve more years and he’d get another trophy for his service. A much larger trophy. One that he could trade in for upgraded meals on holidays.
He could work barefoot if he wanted. It was that sort of job. He never did, but it was nice knowing that he could. This wasn’t some stuck-up law office or mindless grocery-bagging job or anything near rocket science. This was low-stress, high-comfort, mentally engaging (but not challenging) work.
He had, of course, had to pay for his kit of undenting tools: a set of tiny hammers for shaping the metal back into place, tweezers for carefully peeling back and resetting tabs, and several rolls of sandpaper at varying degrees of fine-ness for fixing any blemishes the cans should acquire prior to or during the undenting process. All of this without spilling a drop, of course.
He’s never had a sip of any soda of any kind. His mother had always said the drink would rot one’s teeth and he liked his teeth well enough and could do without them rotting anytime soon. He was still so young and so were his teeth. No girl would like a boy with rotted teeth. So no soda for him.
It’s not as though he ever had an opportunity to drink soda though, given that the Reformery was very strict on sampling one’s product. The soda was to be sold back to retailers at a reduced rate for selling at a reduced price. It was not, no matter how dented the can may be, for consumption by any Aluminum Can Reformer on the premises. Under any circumstances.
And it did not matter how dented the can may be. It had to be restored to its intended shape. Post-haste. Completely so. This was his task after all: that a can should be undented totally.
Nobody would buy the cans if they were dented. That’s what the training videos had said and it made sense enough. After all, who would want to buy a dented can? He often repeated this aloud to himself while undenting one of the two-hundred or so cans he was tasked with undenting every day. The thought got him through many hard days.
The meals were getting better too. They included sides now and were pretty filling. He almost never went to bed hungry. So, who was he to complain?
Oh, and starting next year he’d get weekends off too. One day every week. It was a generous new initiative from the Reformery to cut down on meal and housing costs. He wouldn’t be allowed to sleep in his office on this newly designated weekend night, though.
Maybe he’d ask to move back home on the weekend. That would be nice. To see his family again. It’s been a long time since he’s gotten to talk to them or see them or see much of anyone at all, really.
It could sure get lonely working in the Reformery but it was important work that someone needed to do, and in a world as tough as this one, who could complain about holding a good, honest, job?
Maybe he’d enjoy a perfectly undented can of soda on the weekend, when he eventually got one. Surely, a single can won’t rot a person’s teeth out?