They think I'm just some welder...they could not be more wrong.

They think I'm just some welder...they could not be more wrong.

That was my Pa--not me. He was just some welder. He worked hard. Went to work every topclock and worked until the tenth whistle blew. Stumbled home so tired he could barely see--and it wasn't from drinkin' hotfire hooch, either--and collapsed into a heap once he checked on Ma and me. It didn't matter to me what the other urchs said about Pa. He wasn't a drunk and he didn't beat on me or Ma.

He just let the High-Ups use him up 'til there was nothing left.

Not me.

They think I'm just a welder. Just some dumb stiff, just like my Pa, who's gonna work for them 'til he drops. Well, they're in for a real shocker, let me tell ya.

It all started when they gave me that muckrakin' assignment to clear out the Old Tunnelwerks. Hundreds of millions of tons of slagged iron and ruined steel, all heaped up in piles bigger--way bigger--than the biggest shanty-shack in Coppertun, all buried in a tumble-down tunnel as black as the backend of a NightHowler. It was a corroded job and they knew it when they gave it to me. But they weren't counting on what else might be down there, in the dark, buried under all that slime, slag, and shite.

But I found it, and it's gonna change everything. Everything for me. Everything for Ma. Everything for Tinua. I knew it the moment I slipped them over my eyes that everything was gonna change. I don't know what they are, but I've taken to callin' them my Shiners. They help me to understand things, to piece things together that I wouldn't have even noticed before.

Yea, you bet your last braid, brothers. Everything's gonna change now.

'Cause now, I know the things the High-Ups don't want me to know. I can see everything.

Art Source: "welder" (c)/by Boris-Dyatlov
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Brasshand, #Shiners, #Welder, #Coppertun, #OldTunnelwerks, #Tinua, #HighUps