Skylar Haskard. SQUARESVILLE

About

IT WAS GHOSTS
Ha! What was that collection of weatherbeaten warehouses off in the distance? And is not that a man ringing a gong in front of the largest shanty? Surely we are not approaching the worldly mansions of Labor, the residence of the proletariat?
It cannot be-and surely that gong is not a supper bell?
Why are we going in that particular direction, and why are our feet dragging as if some invisible shackle was weighing them down? Is it possible that we do not desire to arrive there too soon?
What made the rest turn back?
Were they frightened by something?
Darkness is upon us but we can distinguish ten or twelve buildings and, as I live, two of them are tents. We hold a consultation in muffled tones as if loath to disturb the gloomy sanctity of the ill-smelling “square.”
“I wonder what the hell have we struck here,” comes a question from one of the boys, who appeared to have knowledge of such things.
“It beats me,” volunteers another. “What are we going
to do-go back or stay?”
“Take a look at ‘er, anyway,” somebody suggests.
In this solemn moment, under a frowning sky, we approach the forbidding and forlorn hovel-hesitatingly expectant, half fearful, as to what terrible retribution may there await our discovery. A ghostly gleam, pale and yellow, stabs us in the eye. Ghosts!
The darn thing may be haunted! Look! There it is again-in
the window!
A fellow worker, braver than the rest, creeps to the window and looks in. “My god, fellows, there are human beings in there! ‘Tis a camp,” he whispered, voice husky with emo-tion. “”Tis the place we were shipped to.”
Haunted? Yes-by Labor.
Tell me how long. . .
Ghosts? Shadows of Men!
Industrial Worker

text by T-Bone Slim