Click here for an explanation of the rating

Music – 2

It gets a two only because of how catchy it is, to be honest this is one of my least favorite songs in terms of the music. The sound effects are very corny, and I don’t like the instrumental parts of this at all. His singing is also very flat.

Poetry – 2

It’s very literal, he’s telling a story, so it’s not particularly poetic in its lyricism. It’s expressive and vivid, but narrative at its core.

Change – 1

There’s no change in this song. This one is really as unchanging as it gets. Perfect example of a 1.

Insight – 2

Definitely a bizarre premise for a song, to be honest with you I always wonder where he’s coming from with this one. I’m sure the song is emotionally accurate to the archetype he’s writing for, but it strikes me as dated in a boomer way, like some of his songs tend to be.

Good – 3

I’m definitely moved by the story, and I do like the song, it’s just a little boring and repetitive.

Story

The island is not large, by some standards. It’s a relatively short walk from one end to the other. But it’s not small either by other standards, such as being big enough to have a McDonalds. It has the docks, with a weekly ship being the only way to get to and from the mainland, warehouses, an apartment building complex, two bars, a deli, and a fancy seafood restaurant. It sits in a temperate climate, experiencing all four seasons. However the peak of summer and the peak of winter are unbearable. At the Company where we work we divide the seasons into two kinds, ‘outdoor lunch’ season, and ‘indoor lunch’ season. During ‘outdoor lunch’ season we go fishing, lay in the fields, throw rocks at passing ships, and pass time enjoying the slow pace of the island. During indoor lunch, when it is either too hot or too cold to be outside, we play cards, come up with word games, or bother the various animals that live in the Company warehouse with us.

The ad that led me here was simple and straightforward. I saw it in a newspaper of all places, laying on the coffee shop table in the city: 

Looking for help with metal rods. 

No experience necessary. 

Minimum wage. 

Housing provided. Must be willing to live in a warehouse.

Company located on Island. 

Must be good with animals. 

I called, and they hired me over the phone within five minutes. Despite my hectic life, I didn’t own much, and packed all I had into a satchel. I took the boat from the City and showed up to the Island in the summer. 

The rooms that the Company houses us in are at the very top of the warehouse, clearly illegally made, and directly under the metal roof. When it rains the room is deafening, and I prefer to try to wait it out downstairs. The rooms are tiny, and when Albert stands and stretches his arms out, he can touch both walls and even reach the ceiling. To be completely fair, he’s very long in every direction. The room came with a mattress on the floor, a small desk, a chair, and a lamp. I keep my clothes in the desk drawers, but besides my uniforms the only clothes I own are a nice pair of slacks and a button down shirt, for when we all go out to celebrate a birthday or something.

The Company warehouse sits right by the water, and in the middle of the night we illegally dump all of our waste into it. Sometimes that task falls to me, and I sit on a plastic chair in the pitch black, keeping watch as the hose empties out in front of me. If I see someone coming I’m supposed to turn the hose off and quickly hide it. Despite having this illegal practice for supposedly years, somehow the Company has never been caught. I use my turns doing it to look out over the water, watch the occasional boat. When I was a child my family used to vacation on the beach, and I would sit in the sand watching the waves come in and out. I was fully convinced that it was me who was controlling the waves coming in and out, that some subconscious process within me was operating all the waves on all the beaches of the world, at all times. I’d look at the waves and whisper “come in, go out, come in, go out…” Living in the City I was unable to ever make it out to the beach, always being too busy or finding it to be too much of a hassle. It was a lot harder to believe that I was still the one responsible for the waves, and maybe in some part I felt bad not being more attentive to this immense role placed on me. 

Maybe that’s why the ad appealed so much to me, “finally I can be closer to the waves that I’ve been so thoughtlessly neglecting for all these years.”

I also think that, legally, as island employees, we are supposed to live in the massive apartment complex that sits in the very middle of the island. The owner probably decided that It was too expensive to put us up there, which is why they built us the rooms in the warehouse. When inspectors come we’re supposed to fill the rooms with the metal scraps, to make it seem like they’re just extra storage space. “Yes officer, and these tiny dark little rooms we use only for the most hideous and off putting metal scraps, so no need to look too closely, wouldn’t want you leaving here feeling bad now would we?”

Sometimes at night I sit in my tiny dark little room and look out the window. On nice nights, you can just faintly see the glow of the City in the distance. I remember my time there, every day spent running around, an animal in a cage, never resting. Scared of missing something. That morning in the coffee shop I had missed my morning train and was running late, so I had decided to stop off and buy my boss a coffee to make up for my delay. I saw the ad sitting on the table, and to be honest I didn’t think much of it at first, only how strange it was to have a job listing with so few descriptions. ‘Metal rods’ was bizarre, and I wondered what it was they were doing to them. I walked out the door, and almost immediately tripped and spilled the entire coffee on my suit. I won’t say the words ‘lost it’, but I was definitely yelling expletives for far longer than was appropriate, judging by the faces of the people around me. I walked in for some napkins, saw the ad again, took a picture with my phone.

I got to the Island second, a month after Albert. Then, a month after me, Candy arrived. And like that we filled the three openings the Company had. 

In the morning I come downstairs to the work room, and pour myself a cup of coffee into a disposable paper cup. I could use ‘my mug’ but then I’d have to wash it, and I don’t really have the energy today. I’m the last one to come downstairs today. 

“Whose turn is it to buy milk?” I ask the room. Whoever’s turn it is forgot to do it. Buying milk is something that needs to be done pretty often because the coffee is disgusting and burnt, and everyone here adds milk to make it drinkable. Due to a lack of milk today I add an obscene amount of sugar instead. 

“Morning,” I say to the owner, Arthur, who’s waiting to get his own cup of coffee. 

“We’ll see about that,” he says. 

I used to say “Good morning,” but then he would say “We’ll see about that,” so I started just saying “Morning,” but he kept saying “We’ll see about that.” 

I smile politely in response.

I hate him so much.

The foreman, Ethan, calls out to me to go over today’s project. He’s a rail-thin neurotic man. He has half of an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear, and he’s muttering under his breath. He’s worked here since he was a teenager, and he hasn’t been off the island in over ten years, when he left to go to his parent’s funeral. 

The animals are his doing. The Company warehouse is filled with animals. When companies first started moving onto the island, building warehouses and the like, the local animals started losing their homes, getting hit by cars, being abused by the workers. So Ethan started taking them in. Birds live in the rafters, cats and dogs sleep in small shelters that line the walls, the livestock have a gated field in the back. The more unique animals are kept in cages or in special rooms of their own. Because of all the animals, when walking into the warehouse, it’s hard to tell what it is that the company does. People are surprised that it has absolutely nothing to do with animals, but instead involves metal rods. Ethan was the one that added “must be good with animals” to the job listing. 

Ethan gets away with stocking the place to the brim with living creatures because he’s been dating the owner’s sister, Grace, for the majority of his time here, about twenty years. Grace is significantly older than him. She’s quiet, self conscious, a pushover. She’s employed by the Company, but doesn’t seem to do anything for it. I guess she’s responsible for getting us our paychecks, but she’s usually so late, or makes so many mistakes, that Arthur, the owner, has to do it for her. Occasionally when she does pipe up, it’s to tell a joke that almost always lands badly. I know for a fact she beats herself up over it, I’ve heard her walk off muttering ‘nice going, Grace’. 

The work itself is tedious, and there’s no way around it, which is why the three of us are here. We sit around a large wooden table ten hours a day, working on metal rods, and talking the whole time to make the time pass faster. When work is done for the day, we head out towards one of the two bars. The only difference between them is the one is about five minutes farther away. Tonight we walk to the farther one, and it’s already filled with all the other island workers, a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, and the smell of sweat and liquor. We sit at a table in the back, play cards and bet two dollar bottles of beer. By the end of the night, stumbling back to the warehouse, I throw up in one of the fields. This happens almost every night. I collapse on the mattress in my room, with the lamp still on. The next morning I’m the last to come downstairs and pour myself a cup of coffee. 

“Morning.”

“We’ll see about that,” Arthur says, with his shiteating grin.