Fractured Fairy Tales by Catherine Stovall

employer. Fortunately, the tape emanating from the old man’s hat has reached his elbow, and he backs away to rip it off and study it once more.
    “It’s official!” he exclaims with sudden, hoarse joy. “The Empire has acquiesced to my request for sky engines over Africa! Look here, do you see?”
    He holds out his latest paper strip, but all I can make out are strange, shorthand symbols that I don’t understand. I reply brightly all the same, “That’s wonderful, Sir.”
    “I shall have to depart at once for the continent if I’m to be there in time to oversee the launch.”
    Mr. Metero turns on his heel, ready to depart in his sudden excitement, but when he reaches my door just a pace or two away, he stops. His frosted eyes fall on my face and my stomach jolts again.
    “I suppose,” he begins slowly, “that I shall need someone to take care of the factory whilst I’m gone.”
    He can’t possibly mean me, and yet the smile on his thin lips tells me otherwise. I raise my eyebrows, unable to vocalise the question that all my dreams might come true, if only for a week or so. Mr. Metero just nods, as though he can hear every word I’m thinking.
    “You’re a diligent chappie, Mr. Steed,” he says merrily. “Why don’t you come up to the top floor with me? We’ll see if you’re suited to the task.”
    I don’t want to lose the opportunity, but it feels so impolite to just cry ‘Yes’ at the top of my lungs. Instead I clear my throat, wringing my hands together for the briefest moment.
    “You’re sure, Sir?” I ask humbly. “I’m just a simple clerk, really. I haven’t a clue about the running of a factory.”
    “Precisely,” Mr. Metero says, pointing a bony finger at me. “If I gave control to one of the designers, they’d have ideas above their station, be wanting to experiment!” He stamps his foot for emphasis. “Disgraceful! And give power to a labourer, well, he’d be taking liberties casting tropical sunbeams over his own back yard.” Another stamp. “Criminal! We can’t have that. But you, my lamb, you’re in the middle. You know your place, and you’ll stick to it for me, won’t you?”
    “Yes, Sir,” I say, hardly daring to believe my luck. “Of course, Sir.”
    The gold and glass elevator is only for designers and senior staff usage. It operates by hand-crank from the ground floor, where a labourer is put in place to wind the locomotive device in both the upward and downward directions. Mr. Metero rings a little service bell from a panel within the contraption, which is labelled Third Floor in a curling, elegant script. The gilded box begins to ascend after mere moments, and I peer out of the glass panels in its doors to watch the forbidden floors above me coming into view.
    We pass the designers’ floor, where the architects of weather sit at their titled desks, pencils and calculators in hand, and then the scene is gone as a corridor the colour of aubergines comes into view. I chance a glance at Mr. Metero to find the old man watching me, a knowing smile playing at his lips. He surely understands how exciting this moment must be for one who hasn’t witnessed the third floor before. He opens the elevator doors for us both, stepping back again to allow me first passage into the corridor ahead.
    The hall leads onto a huge expanse. Here, at the head of the building, the ceiling has been removed to combine with the attic, giving rise to a ten foot space above where I stand. The Metero Factory’s roof is riddled with thick, rectangular panels of glass that display the sunlit sky above. Between the glass, there are pockets of open air that let warmth and natural light stream in. I almost wonder what Mr. Metero does when it rains, but then I remember who he is. I’m sure that it never rains above the Metero Factory.
    Through the floor, huge brass pipes rise up towards the holes in the glass ceiling. I recognise the polished metal as belonging to the weather engines below,