Original X-roads-2003

    My clothes were starting to itch from being on me for so long. The showers were safe to use, there was a female and male shower. A machine scanned your body at the door, if you weren’t the right gender it didn’t open, it also wouldn’t open if there was any gender directly behind you. But what good is a shower if you have to put on dirty clothes over it? There was a room built with machines to wash and dry clothes, but they were all broken. I heard they had been fixed recently, but residents tried washing metal parts and various items, including themselves and children in the washers and they broke them. The same happened with the dryers. The machines didn’t last two days.
    I told the residents all you have to do is work in shifts and we could have this place nice. There was more than enough normal people to take care of the disabled. It required work and sacrifice, it had to be done out of love and or respect for each other which is where I lost the majority of them. But I had a handful of few people that joined with me. We put in the request for the washers and dryers to be fixed. We set up sleeping schedules and guard duties for the laundry room. We cleaned it up and then stood guard. We used the time during guard duty to exercise and build up muscle tone to keep some of the bigger menaces out. No one was a problem yet, but they would be after the machines were fixed.
    We became notorious after a while, guarding the launderette. Little children were always coming over and mimicking the exercises, some treated us like we were super heros. After the machines were fixed, we were put to the test. We had to recruit more people, and bribe them into doing it with extra food rations. It was nice to have clean clothes again. I taught anyone willing to learn how to use the machines responsibly, and those who could not learn I taught the reason why they couldn’t touch the machines.
    After a short time I noticed a change in the atmosphere of the block were in. People were becoming less like animals and more like people. I saw less pushing and shoving, and more avoiding and moving aside. I heard less anger and more laughter. I noticed our food rations increased without anyone requesting it as well, which was unprecedented I hear.