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Reaching Out 
by Judith Pratt
Judith has been an actor, a director, a teacher, and a playwright. In October 2020, her monologue, The Windows, appeared at The Marsh theatre, San Francisco, and her essay, “Exploitation of Fat,” on Golden Walkman podcast. In 2019, her play Maize won the SciArts Playwriting Prize from Louisiana State University.
When a character in one of her plays had a new story to tell—a story that would never fit on a stage--She wrote a novel, The Dry Country. Her second novel, Siljeea Magic, was published in 2019. 
Blog: http://judithprattwriter.com
Twitter: @JudithPratt, https://twitter.com/JudithPratt
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6255721.Judith_Pratt
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/judith.pratt.7/
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​Previous  Shorts
Basis by Rob Perrier
​Blade or Mist by Nichole Galle
​Reaching Out by Judith Pratt
​Observe by Beth Robertson
​Darkside Management by Tom Howard
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​Clock in. Get my cart. Get my scanner. Walk around the warehouse, using the scanner to find everything the bosses have put on it. Tire Shine Combo. Unicorn Bathrobe. Mini Popcorn Cones. Find the item. Put it my cart. Then the scanner tells me where to go next.

I drink Gatorade so I can keep working. A couple of 15-minute breaks, barely enough to breathe or go to the bathroom. Half an hour for lunch, just enough time to walk to the bathroom, snatch a sandwich, get back to my cart.
My friend Angie once tweeted: “I walk 20 miles every day.”

She got all kinds of “wow,” and “how can you be so disciplined.” We got a good laugh out of it. See, It’s our job. We’re pickers in a big warehouse that’s owned by a huge company.

We all kind of know each other, out on the floor. At least those of us who share shifts. We wave, give a thumbs-up. And when there’s a newbie we all try to help out—share our Advil and Gatorade, tell her where to buy them cheap.
Until Jasna.

We didn’t think she’d last. Too thin, too pretty. Black curls, soft brown skin, and blue-green eyes. That first Wednesday Angie said, “We better keep an eye on her. I’ll pass the word.” When we see the new person out on the floor, we check in with her, see how she’s doing. People can just collapse. No one finds them until the scanner yells that they aren’t being productive.

I didn’t see Jasna until the fifth time I unloaded my cart onto the belt. She looked as cheerful as if it was the first load of the day. I asked her how she was doing. “Just fine,” she said, with a big smile.

At lunch, Angie said, “Did you see how fast that new kid worked, Sharita? She’ll make the rest of us look bad. I heard one of the bosses say she picked sixty pieces an hour already!”

I said that was impossible. Angie just shrugged.

That afternoon, I watched for Jasna, and had some luck. About 4 p.m., she and I were kind of close together. I was picking up a bottle of fancy skin cleanser. Whatever Jasna needed was just a few shelves down. Her scanner found the microwave in its box.

She held out her hand and the box whizzed off the shelf and onto her cart.

I decided that I must be dehydrated and seeing things. I took a big swig of Gatorade. Then I picked up three bottles of Luminous Liquid Foundation, an Inflatable Family Lounge Pool, and a big container of Enforcer Flea Spray.

Angie and I take the same bus. We usually talk about our day. But today she just stared out the window.

Finally, I said, “Did you run into Jasna on the floor?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“What was she doing?”

Angie stopped staring out the window and stared at me. “Picking, like we do,” she said. “Did you see her?”

I nodded. We looked at each other.  The bus ground its gears going around the corner to Bullsville Road.
 “She put out her hand and a giant box just, it kind of—” Angie stopped

“Flew onto her cart?”

“I thought I was losing it.” 

 “Me too.”

We were quiet, trying to believe what we both saw. Finally, Angie said, “She’ll make us all look bad. They’ll think we can be that fast.”

We just sat together until I got off at the school to pick up the kids. Hank works nights. He gets the kids off to school. I pick them up. The school is only a mile from our house so we walk home.

Once all three kids were in bed, I called Angie.

We considered ways to make Jasna look bad so she’d quit. That was fun. Until we realized that all of those ways would make us look bad, too.

“We could troll her on Facebook or Twitter,” I said.

“Yuck,” Angie said. I agreed with her. Besides, how would it stop her from picking so fast? Then a nightmare woke up Angie’s boy, so she had to hang up.

On the bus the next morning, I said, “We could just ask her how she does it.”

That’s not as easy as it sounds. We’re not supposed to talk. They tell us that it’s stealing time from the company. 
After another late-night phone discussion, we decided to somehow get a note to Jasna. Very high school, but it was the only way. It took us another day to figure out what to say. Meanwhile, Jasna got her picture posted on the break-room wall as Employee of the Week.

           Our note said:
           We know how you pick so fast. Please share it or
           slow down. You’re making us look bad.
           Angie and Sharita.

Angie took a huge chance by chasing Jasna around until she could sneak up and drop the note on her cart while Jasna airlifted a bicycle. That put Angie’s count way down for the day. “Taking one for the team,” she said, on the bus home.

At lunch the next day, Jasna went up to Angie, muttered “where can we talk,” and kept walking.

Jasna was on our shift and rotation. We do 12 hours a day, with a day off every four days. Angie and I work 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Once we’d clocked out, Angie and I lurked at the gate. We worried that we’d missed Jasna. We had missed our bus, but we’d manage somehow. Maybe Hank could come get us. While I was texting him, Jasna came out.
We headed for a nearby diner. Hank texted me that he could get me at 6:30 without being late for work. We didn’t have much time.

Even before the waitress came by, Angie said, “Whatever you’re doing, do it slower.”

We ordered coffee. Jasna ordered fries. “For all of us,” she said, handing the plate to me.
“Thank you,” I said. “How the heck do you--?” I didn’t know what to call what she did.

“My Nonna taught me,” Jasna said. “I can be slower. I don’t do it if anyone is around. If I see them,” she added, grinning at us.

“If she taught you, can you teach us?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

We made plans. Jasna has her own car. I don’t know how she managed that. She’d pick up Angie on whatever day off we actually shared. That didn’t happen often enough. We practiced in our garage. Angie and I took turns watching the kids. What with all that, it took a long time for us to learn what Jasna did.

She called it “reaching.” First we reached empty boxes, then paint cans, then kid’s bicycles. It took months. The day I sent Hank’s old motorcycle across the garage, we celebrated with swigs of wine from a bottle we’d been saving for just that moment.

We limit the numbers of items we pick. We always look carefully before we “reach” for anything, to be sure no one sees us. But it makes the work so much easier that I actually have the energy to play with the kids after dinner. I can even read to them.

Sometimes the three of us talk about teaching this to other folks. Not a good idea, Jasna says. We can’t trust people not to talk about it. Or put it on Twitter or someplace like that.
​
Besides, who would believe us?

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