Korps Microfiction - Luisa Garcia Soto - 24 - Aug - 2020
CW: Wildfire, Swearing, Prison Labor

The fire was still burning. It would be for days more, if not weeks. What had started as several small blazes had come together in what could have seemed a world ending conflagration to those it bore down on. The LNU Complex was a fire large enough and hot enough to create its own micro-climate and weather systems of smoke and ash. Tornadoes of fire and debris pitched into the sky danced on the California horizon. Luisa’s brow squinched down behind the goggles over her eyes. The grizzly stood at the front of the line crew out of Folsom State Women’s Facility. Her right hand braced on the handle of her pulaski axe. Her left lifted to push that hard hat up and back. Her bright orange firefighters jumpsuit was worn open down to the waist, the sleeves tied around her middle. Her muscled arms plainly visible, her brown fur streaked with soot and ash, as was her tank top. The back of which was broadly emblazoned with the letters CDCR, and underneath the word PRISONER.

As she watched that ravenous conflagration before her, she remembered the announcement happening a week ago, the way the warden strode confidently, flanked by her guards, in front of the rows of assembled prisoners out on the yard of Folsom State Prison Women’s Facility. “Most of you are making eight cents an hour pulling your normal shifts. Governor Hawkins is generously offering all of you a chance to improve yourselves and be useful to society. The state is offering you a base rate of Five Dollars a day to get on the fireline!” The sky was a mottled boil of wood and grass smoke reaching out like a smothering hand towards the horizon. “Cal Fire is offering an additional dollar an hour on top of that. You’ll gain valuable experience you can use after your bid is done.” An outright lie, but who knows, things can change… “Step forward if you’re getting on the bus.” Luisa took that step forward.

“AD7425 - Garcia Soto, Luisa. Get on the bus.” The sergeant called out. Another guard was ready to cuff her up for transport. In her wake several others also stepped forward. Numbers and names being called out. All she could wonder now, as she heard them coughing from the creosote smoking out of burning treated wood, was whether five dollars an hour was actually worth this. Cal Fire bonus dollar be damned. Her nostrils flared, she could smell the burning, the rich ash smoke in the air, and not a cough left her lungs. Her Pulaski tool was moved up onto her shoulder. “Keep pushin’ bitches! Dig the marker line!” The Bulldozers would be coming up behind them. That pulaski tool was brought up in an ark and then slammed down, using the adze side to turn the earth and help bury the dry grass and brush.

It was the crack that sounded like a clap of thunder that grabbed her attention. Luisa’s gaze jerked up, and she saw the massive trunk of an oak starting to split, there was a heralding rain of smouldering leaves dropping all around her crew. As she began to charge towards the rest of the line, the trunk gave way with an agonised groan. Her thighs flexed as she lunged to position herself between her crew and that tree, she was certain she’d had it, that this would be her last moments. At least it wouldn’t be theirs. She would catch that damn tree, and give them a chance to get out.

The fucker was heavy, that much was true. But her hands, her body, her fur, nothing was catching alight. The rest of those burning leaves drifted down around her as she held that trunk aloft. Resting its weight against her shoulder and hands. Her thighs flexed, muscles rippling as she bolstered herself against its bulk. “Hija de puta, get moving you cunts!” her voice was a snarl, she could feel that tanktop of hers smouldering and starting to burn, not that she was. Her hips dipped downwards, the muscles in her back and shoulders rolled with the shifting strength in her nearly seven and a half foot frame. That trunk was cast away from her crew, thumping down into the dirt with a rumbling crack and cascade of embers and sparks.

A deep breath was drawn in. Her muzzle was streaked in ash. Her tits covered by the remaining scrap of fabric over her shoulders and down her front, her broad shoulders rolled, her neck slowly worked in a circle. When her eyes opened again, the anger of the fire was reflected there. She was caged by the system, and she loathed it. She bent down and her fingers curled around the haft of her pulaski tool and brought it up over her left shoulder. This path was fucked. The dozers could do the rest. Their lives were worth more than five dollars a day. There were other lines to cut.

She spat on the ground and looked towards the approaching bulldozer line. Her right hand lifted, a finger spun in the air. “Vaminos!”

Her stunned crew started to grab their tools and follow wide eyed in her wake. Murmurs wondering how she managed to not get burned at all doing that already started to run rampant between them. It wouldn’t be long before the Cal Fire Battalion Chief heard, and then the warden.

Thank you @RoxannaRachnid for the amazing sketch of her!