Self-Review – The Jungle

It is Time to Look at The Jungle

A good ten years after I wrote it, The Jungle still feels as fresh and horrifying as it did when I committed it to pixels.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2016. It was written for an anthology that was to be called Disarm, which, unfortunately, never came to be. That anthology was meant to be about gun control.

Background

In 1994, in December, a troubled young man named John Salvi shot up a few abortion clinics in Boston.

At the time, I was working as a claims supervisor for an insurance company downtown. I had somewhere between two and five employees under me (I cannot honestly recall; I just remember two of them so it may have been just the two).

Everyone in the room was female, and I was the eldest, often by at least ten years. I was only 32 years old at the time. Keep in mind, this was long before cell phones put the internet in your pocket. Hell, it was before most people had ever gone online.

I believe it was a good five years before I even went onto Usenet. And so, we listened to the radio or called people we knew, desperate for information. While we were not that close to the danger, we had no way of knowing that.

It felt as if every single woman in Boston and environs had a target painted on her back. And maybe we all did.

I remember being scared, and my coworkers asking me, “What do we do now?”

And I said, “I guess we could make a barricade if we had to.”

Fortunately, we did not have to.

Plot

Much like in the true story, a gunman is terrorizing abortion clinics and the people who work there or use those services. The narrator and her coworker Dan are trapped in the break room. They have already barricaded the door and are wondering what the hell is going on.

They barely know each other, but in the heat of the moment, that does not matter. Together, they hunker down, afraid of what could happen if they do so much as try to stand up.

Characters Caught in The Jungle

The characters are the narrator and her coworker, Dan. She mentions a few other people who work with them, including a receptionist who loses her life that day.

Memorable Quotes

Amidst the K-cups, the stirrers, the paper plates, and the plastic utensils, we wait.

We unplugged the coffee maker and added it to the mess in front of the door. It is two round tables on their sides and six chairs and, absurdly, the coffee maker. It’s as good a break room barricade as anyone has ever made, I figure.

I’m the new girl. I’m just a file clerk. This is my summer job. I was just supposed to make some cash and sock it away for Boston College next year, but instead it’s me and my coworker, hunkered down in the break room, waiting it out.

Genre and Overall Mood in The Jungle

This story is in the contemporary fiction genre. The mood is grim and frightening.

Rating

The story has a T rating. There are corpses, and there is bad language.

Takeaways

I could have done better with this story, but I also think its rawness is a part of its quality. It was a truly frightening time, and I still remember it, over 30 years later. I bet my coworkers from that time do, too.

In memory of Lee Ann Nichols and Shannon Lowney.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.