Whoever Holds the Switch

I wanted to like Whoever Holds the Switch more than I did. The writing is tactile and occasionally brilliant — the gouge on the handrail, the buzz-buzzer on Spanner, and the feel of a failing tooth in a bronze drive are all evocative — but the story felt contained to a fault. The central action (rigging a jury bypass to divert a relief train carrying purifiers and presses) raises big moral and logistical questions that never get fully addressed. Who decides which town gets help? How will supplies be redistributed? The narrative skirts these consequences as if the choice exists only in isolation. Pacing also falters. The middle is dense with tool porn — which is charming for a while — but it slows the forward momentum so the diversion's fallout feels undercooked. A few scenes read like vignettes rather than parts of a whole, and Cass, for all her competence, is oddly opaque; I wanted more of her interior life beyond workmanship. In short: beautiful writing in spots, but ultimately too small for the moral stakes it raises. Feels more like a fragment than a fully realized piece.

There is something almost liturgical about the way this story treats workmanship. Cass's mornings are a ritual: a cabin of tools, the familiar gouge on the handrail, the bronze teeth of a drive that need delicate persuasion. The prose is full of small rites — oiling a shaft, coaxing a pawl — and through those gestures the author creates a community and a morality. The diversion of the relief train is not just a plot point; it is a moral act carried out with grease-stained fingers and a sense of gravity that never slips into melodrama. I loved how ordinary details function as anchors: roasted mushroom skins cooling on a windowsill, a buzzer that makes Spanner 'talkative,' the kettle lights that keep towns steady even when boilers are patched with shoe leather. Those domestic notes turn the devastated landscape from a backdrop into a lived world. Cass is quietly heroic because she understands how systems — social and mechanical — are held together by patient, sometimes lonely labor. The ending (subtle, unbroadcast) leaves you with tactile echoes: the click of a semaphore, the damp smell after rain, a choice made that will ripple in ways the story only hints at. It's lovely, humane, and quietly fierce.

This one is a lovely little wrench-twister of a story. Who knew I could get so invested in a handrail gouge? The author has a sharp eye for the ridiculous: a buzzer on a spanner because Harkin thinks tools need to be "talkative" is peak post-apoc charm — Spanner could start a podcast and I would subscribe. Cass is competent in a way that feels believable rather than superheroic; the scenes where she jabs oil into bronze teeth and listens for a failing pawl are tense without melodrama. The moral choice to rig a jury bypass and steer the purifiers elsewhere lands exactly where it should — messy, necessary, awkwardly human. If you like trains, greasy hands, and a little dry humor with your bleakness, this is delightful. Also, more sentient wrenches, please. 🙃

Short and sharp. I loved the quiet attention to tools and touch — Cass measuring gaps by feel, coaxing a stuck pawl free — it made the world feel lived-in. The scene with the buzzer on Spanner made me smile; it’s those silly human touches that keep the story from being bleak. The diversion of the relief train felt morally dense without getting preachy. The prose is spare and tactile, and the fogged flats and mushroom skins make the setting vivid in just a few lines. A restrained, satisfying read. I'd happily read a longer piece set here.

I appreciated the craft in Whoever Holds the Switch. The piece reads like a manual for living in a ruined world: meticulous, tactile, and morally complicated. The jury bypass plot is compact but dense — diverting a relief train of purifiers and presses is a high-stakes technical decision that the story makes visceral by showing the exact motions: opening the maintenance hatch, feeling for a failing tooth, cradling a relay while swapping a contact. Those micro-actions are where the narrative tension lives. The author builds atmosphere economically; a neighbor's breakfast smells anchor the rail tower to community and keep the narrative from sliding into pure technician fetishism. I also liked how humor creeps in (Harkin wiring a buzzer onto Spanner) to humanize otherwise technical sequences. If there's any critique, it's that the wider logistical fallout of diverting the train is hinted at rather than examined — a deliberate choice, perhaps, to keep the focus on Cass. This is a short, focused slice of post-apocalyptic life that rewards readers who like character through craftmanship rather than broad exposition.

I fell in love with Cass Havel on the first page. The opening line — the tower's gears sighing like something alive — set the tone: quiet, stubborn, and tender. I kept picturing her running a hand over that gouge on the handrail and feeling the memory of the storm; those small scars tell you everything you need to know about who she is. The jury bypass and the choice to divert the relief train are handled with such pressure and restraint that my chest actually hurt during the moments when she braces the semaphore and waits for the signal to hold. What stood out was how tangible everything felt: the buzz-buzzer on Spanner, the smell of roasted mushroom skins, the way oil finds a stuck tooth. This is a salvage story that trusts its readers to notice the details, and it pays off. The humor — little absurdities like a talkative wrench — kept it from being dour. Warm, tense, and ultimately humane. 🙂