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A Bumper Year

Flash Fiction by Shaun A. Saunders

Image by Anthony Freda | anthonyfreda.com

increase production! Last year was a bumper year, and we must better that this

year. We must have growth!”

Frustrated to the point of pulling out my hair if I could have reached it, I said,

“The major manufacturers are already working four shifts around the clock.”
    

“Major manufacturers. What about the smaller producers? They’ve all got to pull

their weight.”
    

I shook my head. “Any company with under a hundred employees has already taken advantage of the IR reforms. They’re pulling at least five shifts, some six.”
    

“Just six?”
    

I shrugged. “Mr. Secretary, there are only twenty-four hours in a day. Our own research suggests that people can’t work more than sixteen hours a day for more than a few weeks at most —”
    

“Then rotate the old workers with new ones.”
    

I said with care, “Mr. Secretary, there comes a point of no return. Despite what you might have been told, the labour market is not unlimited. We’ve roboticised and automated production lines as much as possible, but we still need human intervention and decision-making. For one thing, people are cheaper than the more complex semi-intelligent machines. Also, sooner or later, we can’t replace workers on lines quickly enough with newly trained ones. Where those graphs intersect is a point of no return on investment. There are others.”
    

“Piffle. Give me one sensible example.”
    

I squared my shoulders as best I could. “Well, Mr. Secretary, has it occurred to you that production without consumption is, ah, pointless? You need consumers — people — to do the buying and consuming, and to do that they needs jobs and incomes?”
    

The Secretary General's mouth collapsed into a sarcastic grin, “And what might those other supposed points of no return be?”
    

“Have you been outside lately?”
     

I ignored the look of disdain on the Secretary’s face, and with considerable dexterity, opened the Venetian blinds in my office. I’d planned this carefully, down to the last centimetre. The forecast had been for a clear day, but visibility was limited, as usual. What light there was fought its way between the cracks and crevices in the piles of manufactured goods that filled every space:

Shiny motor vehicles were stacked high in pallets; their plastic weather coverings intact, moving rhythmically with the breeze as though they were breathing with a life of their own. Nearby stood thousands of boxes of mix-masters, video screens, toys and laundry soap; medications for angina, constipation, reflux, and all manner of excessive good living; goods of every type, colour and flavour imagined by marketers…
    

“At some point, there just isn’t any more space, Mr. Secretary. Now if you don’t mind, I think I might need to use the bathroom. If you would be kind enough to move your left elbow — yes, over there — I might just be able to squeeze over my assistant and past those boxes in time…”
    

The Secretary had to have the last word. “You haven’t planned this very well, have you?" he said. "I hope you wet yourself!”

​***

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