Cleansing plague

Scraping finger nails
Corner of the plague digs in
Excavates dole dirt

A Haiku is supposed to capture a moment. This moment was me sat at the signing on desk inside Preston job centre when I caught myself picking the dirt out of my fingernails with the corner of a book called "The Plague" by Albert Camus. I felt like a scruffy bastard, deciding that creating something out of my own squallid filth might elevate me slightly above the level of a 'Trendy Tramp', the look I have been accidentally cultivating on and off for the last 3 years.

I live life like the Captain of a sinking ship

All around me is grey.
Steel grey and bolts.
A constant low hum fills the air, the frequency of which reacts with my brain leaving me nauseous and disorientated.
I'm wearing a light blue jump suit, as are the other 3 men who surround me. We're alone in the lower recesses of the ship, the bottom deck, where the sides of the ship meet at a point. An eerie silence prevails.

The feeling I have inside me is that bored numbness that occurs when you're at a tedious job you really hate in full knowledge that the only interesting thing that will come out of anyone elses's mouth is cigarette smoke. It's interesting because out of all the aspects of their character:

A) Last night's/Tomorrows game.
B) Lewd comments regarding women they would have no idea how to strike up a conversation with, never mind pleasure.
C) Grossly misinformed and inaccurate political opinions they lapped up from whichever scare-mongering news rag it happens to be that shows the most tit.
D) Gossip: Celebrity/Personal/Extended network.
E) Alcohol anecdotes: I had *insert anecdote* pints/bottles and I was so *insert anecdote*

their slow, toxic death is the only thing you really care about.

I've completely forgotten why I have been sent here.

"What's going on?" I enquire
'The ship is heading for an ice berg. We've got to strenghten it so the hull won't be breeched'

My maintenance colleague says this so nonchalantly that it infects me and I remain very calm and unphased. I assume that it must be a very small ice berg and that some precise calculations have been made to assure our safety. The modifications that are about to be made will revert imminent disaster. Even though I am still quite calm, I feel a strange, new urge bubble inside me. An urge to work really hard.

I look around for our life saving equipment. It hasn't arrived yet, only the cleaning crews mops and brushes are in sight.

"Do we not need wood and nails or some welding gear?"
'No, just follow our lead' the same man replies.

A brief amount of time passes until he says,
"Get ready to brace, ok...now"

The 3 men pick up some long brushes, the type used by caretakers. The points of the handles are imbedded into their chests, the brush ends pushed up against the front of the ship, some horizontal, some vertical. The men are pushing with all their might, the strain visible on their faces.

'What the hell are you doing!? Help us!' screams the man with the mouth.

I grab a brush and rest it against the ship.

'Come on, push!' shouts the man

"This is stupid. If the ice berg can break through the ship then how can 4 men with brushes contain it!?" says I

'These are our orders'

"What's the name of this ship?"

'The Titanic'

"We're all gonna die!" I wail

'Only if we fail' comes his stern reply

My feet are cold. I look down and I'm ankle deep in water.

"We've already been breeched. Let's run away to the top deck, it's our only chance"

'No! We're preventing the ship from sinking. Many lives depend on us'

I start to push really hard. Maybe this guy is right? He seems to know more about it than me.
The water is rising.
I look at the other mens' brushes. No one has even formed an X. There's no formation here. 4 men randomly positioning brushes against a hull. This isn't precise, it's precisely what I thought it was, madness.

"I'm off boys. Good luck with all this business though..."

I throw my brush to the side and start splashing my way away from the lunatics. After a few seconds I hear a gigantic roar from behind and I am swept away by a torrent of water and killed.