Ropes, Bellows, Glue

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” ― Emily Dickinson

The plant manager stood on the factory floor. The sun was yet a cold furnace somewhere behind the skyscrapers of a dark, cold city whose blackened lungs were drawing air with a rasp, a cough, and a pant. Soon, invisible hands would bring that furnace to life, and rays of fiery flames would pour in through the large windows of the factory building. Dusty cobwebs hung from the beams, and from the old window frames. “Filthy…I’m filthy rich,” the manager chuckled at the thought.

 

He reached for his silver pocket watch with a frown. “Lazy bunch, would it kill them to arrive five minutes early?” The rusty metal gates were not open yet; the acid waters of anxiety were only lapping at his ankles, but they were rising fast. Every minute those gates stayed closed, the waters rose, and before the tired old watchmen swung the gates open, the manager’s breathing would be fast and shallow, his throat tight, and his stomach tied in knots. It has been his morning routine, and it was no different on the day he died.

 

Life is a river that never stops flowing; it never runs dry. Life is a shift on a factory floor that will be followed by another shift, and another, and another. Quotas, meetings, coffee breaks, lunch breaks, a rhythm and a macabre dance of machines and men in perpetuity. Twenty-four-hour radio stations provide the soundtrack, nonstop delis the food, soulless, lost men the performance and the audience. God is not invited; he is a bum with no ID, resume, or a history of employment. He would be turned away at the gate if he decided to pay a visit.

 

On June 13, 1933, at exactly 6:01 in the morning, the plant manager Thomas Brown’s heart stopped beating, and he collapsed on the factory floor he manned for 45 years. One moment he was watching the hands of his pocket watch move, the next his freshly shaven face was on the cold stone floor. This was an entirely new perspective, one from which he never thought to observe his plant, that is to say his life. 

Scraps of leather, woodchips, nails, and dust, the smell of leather dye, and glue mixed with something he never perceived before: sweat, frustration, and desperation lingering in the air, oozing out of the walls. And where was the pride, the love he felt for his work? Under the work benches he saw only prints of workmen’s boots, and ants hurrying along with sawdust boulders on their backs.

 

“Man your stations! Hurry! Life is a river! Never…never…runs dry!” he shouted, or thought he did. There were sounds, and he sighed in relief. Pulleys creaked, bellows sighed heavy breaths, ropes like sinews moved conveyor belts, gates opened and closed, light and darkness, light and darkness, footsteps, a rhythm, da-dum..da-dum..the heart of the factory…his heart...da-dum…da-dum…light…darkness…then silence.

 

Thomas Brown looked down at the body that lay on his floor. “A scandal! This will not do! Get up, sir, whoever you are!” The body, his body, did not move. Uncharacteristically of him, his anger quickly dissipated, and he was more interested now in the gentle rays of the sun coming in through the windows. He snapped back, and remembered the sounds…the pulley, the bellows…but now, there was silence all around. He reached for his pocket watch. 6:01. Time stopped. 

 

“I will have to talk to the…about the…,” his thoughts scattered. “I…I…I…,” he stood repeating the word that was devoid of meaning. He could not think in this deafening silence. His ropes…his bellows…somehow everything came apart, unglued, as it all lay on the cold factory floor motionless. 

 

Many came to pay their respects at the funeral. “A great man; a great loss. He was a leader of men. He knew the world. He knew his business inside and out. Words fail us, but we all know who he was. We know.”

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

'Life is a river that never stops flowing; it never runs dry. Life is a shift on a factory floor that will be followed by another shift, and another, and another. Quotas, meetings, coffee breaks, lunch breaks, a rhythm and a macabre dance of machines and men in perpetuity. Twenty-four-hour radio stations provide the soundtrack, nonstop delis the food, soulless, lost men the performance and the audience. God is not invited; he is a bum with no ID, resume, or a history of employment. He would be turned away at the gate if he decided to pay a visit.'

Within your writing is moral, life, routine - and the tick of a man's commercial and personal clock. There's both raw facts and emotional touches that lead to a finish that wraps Thomas Brown into an eternal space. Meantime, perhaps intentionally, finely written post is his blue plaque.

[Arundass TP]

A sad story
More over powerful realistic images given in entire story. Nicely written.