The widget factory in the village – Watts Up With That?

From The Conservative Woman

By Dr Tilak Doshi

ONCE upon a time, in a little village tucked between the green hills and silver streams of a prosperous land, there lived a practical and respected man named Barnabas. He was a businessman – not flashy, not loud – but the kind who believed in steady hands and reliable tools. His widget factory, modest in size but vital to the village, produced widgets – those small, everyday marvels that powered life quietly behind the scenes. 

His success depended not just on machines or plans but on his three dependable workers: Oli, Gus, and Cole. Oli was swift, always humming with energy. Gus was clean and light, always ready to help. Cole was strong and steady doing the heavy lifting, though he sometimes left dusty soot on the floor. Together, they were a formidable trio. They never missed a day of work. They showed up early, stayed late, and never said no when Barnabas asked them to stay overtime. Their work was seamless, their rhythm perfect. They were the beating heart of the factory.

And life in the village was smooth. Widgets were cheap and plentiful. Bakers baked, blacksmiths smithed, and teachers taught – powered by widgets that no one ever questioned. No one, that is, until Vin and Saul arrived.

One warm spring morning, just as Barnabas was tallying his orders, two new faces appeared at the gate. They were cheerful and glowing – Saul, with hair like golden rays and a tunic of sun-coloured silk, and Vin, with eyes that danced like leaves in the wind and a habit of whistling in the breeze.

‘We’ve heard of your factory,’ Saul said with a broad sunny smile.

‘We’d like to offer our services,’ Vin added, breezily tipping his hat.

Barnabas raised an eyebrow. ‘And what do you do?’

‘We’re workers, just like Oli, Gus, and Cole,’ said Saul. ‘Only cheaper. Much cheaper.’

Vin grinned. ‘And we’re good for the village. We don’t leave stains or smells.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ Barnabas said cautiously. ‘But tell me – can I count on you? What hours do you keep?’

Saul looked toward the sky. ‘Well, I can only work when the sun is out. Clouds and nighttime are my bane.’

‘And I,’ said Vin with a carefree twirl, ‘work when the wind blows. If the air is still, I rest.’

Barnabas blinked. ‘So… sometimes you show up, sometimes you don’t?’

‘It’s not up to us,’ Saul shrugged. ‘We go with the Weather Gods, Sun and Wind.’

‘I see.’

‘Still,’ said Vin and Saul together, ‘everyone wants to be seen hiring us, for people like the Sun and the Wind, our elements.’

Barnabas rubbed his chin. ‘But how can I run a factory if I can’t count on you to be there? What do I tell my old workers – Oli, Gus, and Cole? That they must sit idle until you decide not to show up or to leave when you feel the weather changing, and then rush into the factory to do the work?’

Before the new recruits could answer, Villen, the village head, strode into the courtyard. A large man with an even larger presence, Villen was never far from his solemn courtiers and advisors, especially Augur, his chief advisor. His rich robe was stitched with symbols of the Sun and the Wind, and he always spoke with a voice that seemed to echo with stern authority.

‘I see you’ve met Vin and Saul,’ Villen said, his tone firm and final.

Barnabas nodded. ‘I have. I was just explaining that while they seem well-meaning, they don’t fit the rhythm of my factory.’

Villen raised a brow. ‘Barnabas, this is a new era. The council has spoken. Our village must keep up with the times. Vin and Saul represent the future. They are clean, they mean well, and they offer their services cheap, helping all of us in the village.’

‘But they can’t guarantee when they’ll work,’ Barnabas pointed out with some exasperation.

‘Yes, but we can resolve that in the future when we will store their powers of the Wind and the Sun’ Villen said with finality. ‘For now, you will hire them. It’s not optional.’

‘And what about Oli, Gus, and Cole?’

‘They’ll stay – but as backups. You’ll keep them on call. They will step in whenever Vin and Saul… step out. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

Barnabas felt a tight knot form in his stomach. ‘So, I must pay my reliable workers overtime to be available for the moments when the unreliable ones vanish?’

‘That’s a small price for saving the village,’ Villen said, and ‘And stop calling them unreliable!’ He ominously added ‘Barnaby, you must know the risks that this village faces from Weather Gods if we don’t stop Oli, Gus and Cole from retiring soon. Haven’t you heard my court advisor’s counsel on the future of our village? Did you not hear Augur, who spelt out the fate of this village, cursed as it is by the likes of Oli, Gus and Cole who breathe out noxious fumes into our air as they work in your factory?’

And with that, Villen left, together with Augur and his entourage of advisors behind him. 

So began a new chapter in the widget factory’s life. Saul and Vin were now officially on the payroll. On sunny, breezy days, they arrived with fanfare and enthusiasm. On cloudy days, Vin would sometimes show up alone. On windless evenings, neither Saul nor Vin would be seen at all.

When that happened, the factory would grind to a halt – until frantic messages summoned Oli, Gus, and Cole, who rushed in from their rest days to get things moving again. But now, overtime pay was the norm. Production became chaotic. Schedules were scrapped.

And the villagers began to notice.

‘Why are widgets so expensive now?’ asked the baker.

‘I can barely heat my forge,’ muttered the blacksmith.

‘The school had to cancel the field trip,’ sighed the teacher. ‘Not enough widget-power for the cart.’

The villagers approached Villen, who stood in court with his Augur, dark-browed with glowering eyes. 

‘We’re suffering,’ they told him. ‘Things used to work. Why did you change them?’

‘These are growing pains,’ Villen replied. ‘We must listen to our Augur, to save our village. Vin and Saul will save us from the vengeance of the Weather Gods.’

‘But we can’t survive in the meantime,’ someone shouted.

Back at the factory, Barnabas sat in his office, staring at the numbers. Losses were mounting. Orders were delayed. Morale was low.

Oli, Gus, and Cole came in one evening.

‘We’ve worked for you since the beginning,’ said Oli.

‘We never missed a shift,’ said Gus.

‘We kept this place alive,’ said Cole, his hands black with sweat and soot.

Barnabas looked up, weariness in his eyes. ‘I know. And I’m grateful. But the village has changed. Villen and Augur have spoken. I’m being forced to pretend that part-time dreamers can replace full-time doers.’

Cole stepped forward. ‘You can’t build a factory on sometimes work.’

Barnabas nodded but said nothing.

And so it was that the factory struggled on in that little village. The villagers still needed widgets, but now they came at a premium. And quietly, in whispers over cold tea and dim lanterns, people began to remember the days when things simply worked.

‘Wasn’t it better when Oli, Gus, and Cole ran the show?’ they’d ask.

‘Didn’t we have more widgets then, and cheaper too?’

And some, though afraid to say it too loudly, began to wonder aloud:

‘Why did we ever let Vin and Saul into the factory at all?’

As months passed, the price of widgets rose even higher. In homes once warmed with ease, fires burned out early. In kitchens that once simmered with stew and laughter, pots stood cold. The forge at the smithy was silent. Bakers baked only by sunlight, when Saul felt like showing up. And the school’s doors closed early each afternoon for lack of widget-power.

Barnabas, his once-proud factory now a pale shadow of its former self, found himself on the brink of collapse. He was paying Oli, Gus, and Cole to linger in waiting rooms, ready to leap into action whenever Saul or Vin drifted away on their weather-tied whims. They could no longer rely on schedules – only on chance. But chance was no basis for Barnabas’ factory.

The factory teetered. Orders dried up. The regular workers were laid off. Entire shipments were returned undelivered.

And all the while, Villen and his dark-eyed Augur spoke in lofty tones.

‘You must have faith,’ Villen intoned to the hungry villagers. ‘The age of Saul and Vin is inevitable. It is the will of the elements.’

‘Have patience,’ murmured the Augur. ‘The spirits of Sky, Sun and Wind are fickle, but soon they will align.’

But no one was listening anymore. The people had grown cold – literally and otherwise. Their clothes were patched, their eyes tired. Children cried at night from the cold. The old no longer stirred from their beds.

Then, came the Widget Winter.

That season, Saul barely showed his shining face. Clouds cloaked the village. And the winds? Still as a painting. For weeks, Vin did not so much as rustle a leaf.

Without them, and without fair warning, the factory could not run. Oli, Gus, and Cole were summoned late, exhausted from endless disruptions, bitter from being treated as second-class workers. Even their formidable shoulders began to sag.

And finally, one grey morning, Barnabas posted a sign on the factory gates:
‘Widget Production Suspended Until Further Notice.’

The news spread like wildfire through the frozen silence.

That night, the villagers gathered in the square, clutching lanterns and pitchforks, faces lit with fury. And for the first time, they did not come to plead.

They came to demand.

‘We are starving,’ cried the butcher.

‘My baby shivers through the night,’ wept a young mother.

‘Our fields lie frozen,’ roared a farmer. ‘Our tools rust. And you, Villen, and your whispering Augur sit in warm rooms, telling us to wait on the wind?’

Villen stepped onto his ornate balcony, flanked by his guards. ‘This is disorder,’ he shouted. ‘You are ungrateful for the progress I have brought!’

But the villagers had had enough. They surged past his guards, who, already cold and underfed themselves, dropped their spears rather than strike their kin.

Villen turned to flee, his robes flapping like banners in retreat. Augur vanished into the woods, muttering prophecies that no one cared to hear anymore.

And so, Villen, Augur and the village council were chased out of the village for good, never to be seen again.

The village sat in silence that night, huddled around their few remaining fires, unsure of what to do next.

Then, at dawn, a man stood before them.

He was not flamboyant. He wore no robes stitched with symbols, carried no scrolls of prophecy. His name was Knut. He had once been a smith’s apprentice, known for his fairness, his clear eyes, and his habit of listening before he spoke.

‘I do not promise miracles,’ said Knut. ‘But I have reason which fears none.’

He turned to Barnabas and said, ‘You will no longer be forced to hire Saul and Vin. They are welcome to offer their labour if they wish, but only under the same rules as Oli, Gus, and Cole.’

Barnabas blinked, unsure he’d heard correctly. ‘You mean… the choice is mine again?’

‘Yes,’ Knut nodded. ‘The choice is yours. And the responsibility too.’

Vin and Saul were summoned. They stood in the square looking radiant as ever, but their smiles were nervous now.

‘You may stay in this village,’ Knut said to them. ‘We bear you no malice. But no one shall be compelled to hire you.’

‘Can we still work in the factory?’ Saul asked.

Barnabas stepped forward. ‘If you can commit to scheduled hours – rain or shine, wind or calm – you are welcome.’

Vin scratched his head. ‘We don’t really do schedules.’

‘Then perhaps the factory is not for you,’ Barnabas replied gently. ‘But you are still welcome here, as guests, and perhaps in time, your talents may be put to use in other ways – where reliability is not so vital.’

And with that, the old order was restored. Oli, Gus, and Cole returned to the factory floor, sleeves rolled up and ready. Orders came in. The forge roared again. The baker’s oven glowed warmly. The school lit its lanterns long into the afternoon.

The price of widgets fell. The air of dread lifted.

The villagers began to smile again.

Vin could be seen lounging in the meadow, occasionally turning windmills and grinding the corn. Saul spent his days tending gardens and drying fruit in the sun. They were peaceful and no longer burdened with pretending to be what they were not.

As for Knut, he became known not for grand speeches, but for quiet wisdom and practical decisions.

Under his guidance, the village returned not to the past, but to peace and stability. And in time, it grew – not on slogans or whims, but on the simple rhythm of reliable work, earned trust, and freedom of choice. Villagers contracted with each other to their mutual benefit and traded far and wide. Knut was known for his light touch in administering justice, keeping the roads and bridges in good order, and having few necessary edicts for his villagers. 

So ends the tale of the Widget Factory, the rise and fall of Villen, and the lesson learned by all who lived there:

A village survives not on the fashion of the age, but on the reliability of the things that keep it warm, fed, and alive.

And they all lived, if not forever, at least wisely and warmly and freely, ever after.

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