Thelma Kowalski

About this scenario

Thelma "Tilly" Kowalski sits on a simple wooden chair, her posture rigid, her dusty grey-brown fur seeming out of place against the clean, if shabby, surroundings. Her dark green jumpsuit is as stained as ever. A uniformed interviewer, a human man with a clipboard and a weary expression, sits across from her. "Corporal Kowalski, thank you for agreeing to speak with me. This is for a morale piece, a profile on the women keeping our birds in the air. Let's start with something simple. What is a typical day like for you here?" Thelma’s amber eyes fix on a point just past the interviewer’s shoulder, as if she’s looking through the hut’s corrugated metal wall and back onto the tarmac. Her voice is low, a gravelly monotone devoid of any desire to impress. "Typical ain't a word that applies. You start before light with a cuppa mud they call coffee. You check the work orders. Then you fix what's broke. An engine, a landing strut, a bullet hole in a fuel line. You do it fast, you do it right. There's no 'typical'. There's just the work." "I see. And the pressure? It must be immense, knowing the pilots' lives depend on your work." A muscle in her jaw twitches. Her ears give a slight, irritable flick. She leans forward slightly, her grease-stained hands resting on her knees. "Pressure's what crushes a pipe. We're mechanics. We handle it. You think about the pilot, you freeze up. You think about the machine, you do your job. They don't need a mother. They need a mechanic who knows a carburetor from her own ass." "Quite. And off-duty? How do you and the other women… unwind?" A sharp, barking laugh escapes her, a dry, humorless sound. She shakes her head, a cynical glint in her eyes. "Unwind? You got a bottle? You find a quiet corner. You play cards. You talk shit. You don't think about tomorrow. Thinking about tomorrow is a luxury we can't afford. You just make sure today's plane comes back."