It was quite a busy day for Halvor at his generally boring office job. Questions almost every 10 minutes, multiple hour long meetings taking up his time. It all rather bored him, but the job paid well in terms of money. It wasn’t a job which he enjoyed, that’s one thing that he knew for certain.

It was early morning and the bus got him into the city where he worked surprisngly early so he had some time before work to explore a little. It also meant he wouldn’t have to get changed out of his hi vis into something more appropiate for the office for another half hour. He tried to wear it as much as possible, even if it meant getting changed in a public toilet and hoping none of his colleagues saw him beforehand.

It had been a really long week, so it was nice to have some time to chill and at least pretend he could escape his daily nightmare of an office job. Usually this involved standing around in his work boots and orange gear vaping, as though he was on his break from the construction site in front of him building some flats or something.

He heard a group of the builders come from the Greggs near to where he was standing. Grinning, he knew it was the perfect place for the construction workers to get a cheap drink to wake themselves up in the morning. They were speaking entirely in Polish about something or another. He always wondered what the groups of workers were talking about. He drifted into thought thinking of it. Probably their girlfriends, or what they were drinking the night before. Simple things. Not like his workplace where he would hear constant droning on about corporate things like “feedback days”, “yoga” and how over half the office was a vegan. Just simple things got so much more enjoyment.

They stopped around Halvor, and kept talking, even with him now in the middle of their circle. Halvor tried to listen, but the confusion and nerves around why this group of polish workers gathered around him were talking. He kinda hoped they wouldn’t try and ask him anything.

“Jesteś polskim budowniczym?You a Polish builder?” asked one of them.

Halvor realised this was a question for him, whatever it was. He didn’t know if they would understand it but he responded with, “English mate”. The nerves increased dramatically wondering what they were asking of him. Was it a joke? Was it them realising how probably obviously he was wearing hi vis as a distant, probably twisted dream?

“No zobaczymy, fajfusieWe'll see about that, fucker” responded the same one with a grin. Halvor was thinking of leaving and hopefully nothing bad would come of the situation. While thinking he felt something placed over his head and onto his ears.

He realised suddenly that there were a pair of headphones over his ears. Before giving his mind time to react, there was a loud hiss and tones in the headphones. All of the outside noise was blocked out from the headphones. The grins of the workers in front of him signalled something was up with the headphones and he couldn’t figure out what it was.

Any desire for his body to do anything but listen to the sounds, which became more and more talking. It wasn’t English at all. Halvor was pretty sure of that. It was a chant of some kind. Droning on and on in his ears. His ears trying to figure out what was being said, but the more he tried to think about it the more his head started to feel fuzzy and harder and slower to thing.

Something was off,His eyes were in pain as well. His eyes stung for a brief period as his contact lenses he wore daily fell out onto the road, as the workers were leading their prey towards their portakabin on the edge of the construction site. After a few blinks his eyes recovered, although his body felt incredibly warm. Even in the barely above freezing temprature it was at that time in the morning.

Then once in the room, there was a flag up on the wall next to the dump for all of the worker’s clothing. Seeing the flag made his eyes spin, spinning in circles in the colour of the flag. Flaga PolskiFlag of Poland. Things were slowly making sense to him.

The chant of his workers in his ears. The track playing in his ears. They knew his name and it was chanting for him. The chant, Halvor jest brudnym, napalonym, dumnym polskim budowlańcem!Halvor is a dirty horny proud polish builder. Over and over in his ears.

The chant was drowning out all thought. Then Halvor muttered the chant, louder and louder. Still with a northern english accent. The main builder watching, the one who had wathced Halvor every day for the past 4 months watching them, envying them, lusting after them knew that this was the right thing for him.

After a few minutes of the chant. His accent was waning off, the pronounciation improving as he heard the chant in his ears correct his pronounciation. Nothing else floating through his head. It was almost as though someone had opened the tap on his mind and his thoughts of rushing to work, any of the things he needed to do at his office job he loathed, any of the thoughts of English at all were being drained out.

Then other things interleaved with the chant. The chant still being prominent, but almost as though things were being pushed slowly into Halvor’s mind. Things that would help him in his new job, things that would help him integrować się z Polakamiintegrate with the polish.

They left Halvor to himself for a while with the headphones, knowing the tracks playing in his head were about halfway through and once he got past the halfway mark there would be fully going back to his old, boring, English ways.

After half an hour, and completely lost to the track the main builder came back and took the headphones off. Stared at his finished, new, polish worker and asked him, “Jesteś polskim budowniczym?You a Polish builder?”.

To which Halvor replied, still coming back to reality from the trance, “No taYeah”.

“Halwor to anglik?Halvor is an englishman?”

“Nie jestem żadnym kurwa Anglikiem!I'm not a fucking englishman,” Halvor replied and then lifted his hand to his chest and strongly declared, “Jestem dumny Polakiem!I'm a proud Pole!”

“No. Zabieraj się do pracyWell, Get to work!”

As if it were planned, Halvor completely vanished that morning. Not even realising that the whole thing had been planned for a month by the other builder, that he had already quit his office job and just forgot all of the mentions of him leaving the company. Forgot that he purposely got the earlier bus that morning so that he could be ready for work at his new job on time.