There goes the sirens. The obnoxious ringing of sirens alarming every person within a 5 mile radius. The noises of every emergency truck rushing their way to the factory. The factory? The old factory I should say. It’s gone now, turned into an empty warehouse, when we go back a few years we are working here. That's when everything seemed to go South.

~

The days were long, walking around this empty town. Empty in the way of no life, but full in the aspect of buildings. Every inch of land was covered in dirty, compact, factories, spanning long distances, with workers in a constant hurry to get what they needed done. Everything seemed to be gray, like there wasn’t much soul in this area at all. Almost like the clouds seemed to cover the Earth like a blanket, allowing no light in, until all work was done. And the amount of work? This amount of work never seemed to end. It was like an endless list, controlled by the universe itself, of work to be done. Enough work for every women and most children to spend their entire days trapped inside a dark room. The dark room a place of hell for all who work within. The dark room that has little windows, dirty machinery scattered across the floor, and loud machines operating at all hours.

Outside these buildings was seemingly nothing. The few places to sleep, the occasional market, and mixed in were all dark streets. At night, the streets were rough and dim, the only thing allowing you any vision at all was the dim lights. The yellow hue coming off the lights in a way that it is hard to even consider these things any sort of light at all. Streets were not the ideal place to be at any time of day, but especially at dawn or dusk, and anytime in between. People of the town are out at that time, in the dark, trying to catch a wink of sleep, or out on some sort of runaway mission. Everyone tried to get out of this place, but to many, it was a trap.

The sirens again. I hear them again. It’s a memory, I remind myself, this entire town is a memory. But I can’t help but throw my brain back to what happened 50 years ago, in this same building. This building. This building. This building. That thought replays itself in my head. This building was where I spent all my days. Me and my son, Owen, wasting our days away in this small whole. Owen referred to it as his sad place. He didn’t have many of these, but that’s because the only place he knew was this place. This place that took his actual life from him. This place that the murder happened. The murder of Mary Wollstonecraft. The murderer's name that still cannot fall off my tongue. The insinility man, who decided to do this to my friend. The memory of that day engraved in my brain. The day that changed how I look at that person the rest of my life. He does not even have a name to me anymore. No more calling that person my boss. No more calling that person my owner. That person doesn’t even deserve a name anymore. Their name is the murderer, and it is time to get that out there.

~

I walk into the factory with Owen right beside me. I’m grown now, 78 years old now, and Owen, 57. We stand there surrounded by emptiness. The feeling that I used to get, that pit in my stomach whenever I had to come back into this building, and spend another one of days away. The urge to run out overflows onto me, but I’m stuck in that building. All I can picture, when I stare at the corner where the big machine used to stand. The machine that was blamed for the

death of Mary Wollstonecraft, my dear friend, who was only trying to fight for the women in the factory.

“Mom.” Owen interrupts my thinking. “I’ve already walked around the entire floor and you’re still standing here staring at that corner.” He states.

“How has it already been that long? I was thinking for only a minute I thought!” I say, a whisper in my throat.

“Mom why is this hard for you? To be here again?”

“ Owen,” I say, “when we were stuck here, something very very bad happened to a friend of mine, while she was trying to help us.”

“What?! Why don’t I know about this already? What happened?”

So many questions rushed through Owens head, while I stood there, my feet swaying back and forth, trying my best to gather the strength to tell Owen the real reason I needed him to be here with me. I didn’t come alone today for a reason, but I have a hard time allowing those words to escape my mouth. I had to tell him. I had to tell him why I pulled us away, and what happened that is making me feel this way.

“Owen…” I begin. He pulls my hand, as we begin to walk around this empty floor.  “50 years ago, one morning when I was bringing you into work with me, I heard screeching in the room, and a sign on the door said all workers had a day off. I never saw a sign like this so I didn’t believe it at all. I waited outside the main door for the next person to come, which also happened to be a women named Katie. As soon as Katie arrived, I told her my view on this sign, and that it was a plan set by Mr. Rousseau, our factory manager. I thought he set this sign up, in case Mrs. Wollstonecraft came by to check on us women again. Mrs. Wollstonecraft came by

occasionally, doing everything she could to get us women and children to have equal rights as grown men. We decided together that we needed to walk in and see what was really up. We walked in together, and there was no one to be seen, so we decided to look around for Mr. Rousseau, because he was always there. We walked back to this corner, and I went ahead of Katie. All of a sudden, as I turned the sharp corner, into a seperate nook in the room, my heart dropped to my stomach, and I didn’t know what to do. My body came to a halt, and everything within me froze. In front of me, I couldn’t believe what I saw. A body, Sticking out from under the machine. That machine right there…”

I pointed, barely able to catch my breath, to the machine, still sitting here in this otherwise empty room. I looked on, and moved my gaze over to Owen. His mouth wide, enough to know how much this is crazy to hear.  I stood silent for a few minutes, trying to get my thoughts organized again in my head, before I begin again.

“Right there, is where I saw a body. The body of my friend, Mary Wollstonecraft, stuck under this machine in some way only few would know how to do, with a note next to her. The note was saying that she fought too hard, and was never going to get her way. I’m back here right now with you because I’m going to prove the person that did that to my friend wrong. I brought you here with me today because I need your help.” I finished, hoping Owen would be able to respond with at least something.

“ Mom why didn’t you tell me earlier.  Did you ever find who did it?”

“Yes,” I spoke, “I think we did, but that’s why we’re here today. The factory was shut down as soon as we told Mr. Rousseau about what happened, and that’s when we left.”

Owen stood there speechless.

All I wanted to do was to explain to my son what happened. I wanted to tell him how Mr. Rousseau was the person who killed my dear friend. That Mr. Rousseau only followed through with this action because she was fighting for us. That Mr. Rousseau wanted to have everything done his way, with women and children doing cheap labor, and him earning all the money. But, I couldn’t tell Owen that. Those thoughts that are going through my head, I cannot even think about spilling them out of my mouth. So, all I could do was sit this place that caused me hell, and think about any way today's technology could help now. I think of the police procedures when this happens now. What could we have done with this 50 years ago? Could I have known to stop working for this crazy man quicker than I did? I’m wishing I could have brought everything from now into those days of my life.
While I sit and ponder these ideas, Owen sits in silence next to me. He doesn’t remember these days, but I do, enough for both of us. If only we could figure out technology before all these different beliefs had to come into play.