Lars’s crimes were etched across his body.
The punishment for burglary was five years of hard labour, but over the years the powers that be realised there were certain inefficiencies in how the dark, dangerous mines were operated. The criminals sent there quickly grew weak, their output slowing despite being flogged and subjected to other practices that ought to have been persuasive. Many died, and while the state did not mourn individual losses, the deaths held back the building of ships and the new-fangled trains that would ensure the country continued to prosper.
The greatest minds were called in to solve the problem. The solution, one inventor proclaimed, was not to modify the conditions, but to modify the criminals. Those that were too big needed to be reconfigured to be small. Those that had respiratory problems needed their throats adapted to filter out noxious gases. Those that struggled to swing a pickaxe needed one grafted to their wrist in place of their hand.
Lars had tried to melt down his pickaxe head by himself, but the burning sensation was no different to thrusting his flesh hand into the forge, and the agony made him recoil instinctively. He sought out the most nefarious doctors in the city, but they lacked the knowledge to operate. He even petitioned the state to reverse the changes inflicted on him, but his countless letters were ignored.
It wasn’t the stares on the street that bothered him, but that no respectable person would hire him. It didn’t matter that he knew how to read and write, or that he had had plenty of legitimate jobs before. Employers took one look at him and shook his head. Some thought they were being kind when they explained that of course they would hire him, but their boss wouldn’t like it, or the other workers wouldn’t like it, or they worried the state would pay too much attention to their business.
The only option still open to him was to join The Reconfigured, a hundred strong gang that solely recruited people who had been warped by the state. One woman had an unwieldy saw for an arm, an old man had an oven for a belly, a young boy had been stretched to be eight feet tall. The group had formed a camp in the forests and raided caravans to survive. Lars’s original burglary had been a foolish choice born of desperation, but theft soon became a way of life.
Doesn’t have a proper ending, but I’d prefer to write something fragmented in the afternoon than have a last minute panic at night. I don’t like the word “etched” in the first sentence, but I can’t think of the right word.
What are your thoughts on The Reconfigured? I’d love to hear what you think works and what doesn’t, or how it could be improved. What direction should the story take?
Now //this// is a superhero comic I would read!
I love stories that literalise a metaphor, especially if that metaphor is more of a metonym and does actually have concrete implications in the real world (like the "marking" of prisoners though). It also reminded me a bit of one of my favourite Kafka stories, 'In the Penal Colony'.
That is a very imaginative flash! I can imagine it becoming a longer story or full-length book. I think the word "etched" works. But maybe chiseled, carved, engraved, burned into, or something along those lines could work?