We Are Spineless |

The route over ground from the depot to the interior, covering a bit less than a quarter mile, something has changed on it since yesterday. They all made the leisurely stroll at the same time, but look now. The dirt goes from brown off the bus, normal dirt brown, to some putrid yellow closer to. They shipped sulphur here over night? It’s been some time since he was taken off the smelting line, did they use it there? Thank God for that anyway.

Smoking and talking, they all passed in a clump past the last trees on the grounds, a few perusing the paper, some with headphones on, jogging half-in-place, in pace with the rest still, which that’s still a very strange sight. If you’re going to jog

No, it was cloudy yesterday. The sun’s just peeking out now. Doesn’t explain the stench though.

The clump comes to its standstill at the mile-high entrance to the yard. They would be here a while. No one inside ever accounted for the traffic coming in all at once, so merging at the front remains slow to a stop at this hour. Lunch too, and at the end of the day. Everyone elides with everyone else, forming three neat single-file lines trudging forward towards the forks in the hallway leading to various parts of the yard. He’s going forward to the end, he’s been here so long. But it did put the down payment on his house, didn’t it? “Really, the complaints these days, you’re lucky to have this!” I know. I know.

The trudge speeds up mightily as everyone dissipates and pours into their various compartments. You’d think they were all happy to be here. I guess it’s not bad. Could be much worse. Much worse. Has been much worse, the other place. Let’s not, not now.

There’s a foreman behind his door on the metal grates they pass along to get to their stations. The machine, The Mass, is running and ready, whirring its first, making the first electricity noises of the day. They hide the wires mightily around here, you couldn’t follow the current if you tried. Presumably it heads out to the power station a few miles out on the bay if you follow it far enough, and then into the bay itself and washing out into the ocean, currently whooshing and splashing on rocks, which doesn’t stop to start again. Passing alongside long ductworks, that same water or something like it gushing through with a hum and thudder into the smelting site where his fellow man is getting boiled alive by errant splashes. Everything goes red in there. Down grated stairs, it gets hotter by The Mass. Past a control panel with unmarked levers and buttons. Past the conveyer, dormant. Past a structural element, blackened against one’s fingers. Over cracks in the underfoot cement and puddles of liquid. He’s gotten used to the smell. It smells like the yard now. Morning light comes in through the windows, white against the frosted panes now, bluer in the evening from the other side. Best part of the day. It’s very refreshing. At his spot, he puts on gloves and stares up at a ton-wide square of metal coming directly down on him.

Everyone standing, waits. The waiters get last breaths in, final thoughts before the slate wipes clean and the orders come from the left, or from above. Foreman exits his foreman place, trudges down the stairs without looking at anyone, checks his watch, and without looking at it pulls the lever. A whirring, lever through current, whirrrrrr, louder, oscillating faster and faster and faster. It hits a certain sound, a real sound, rattling through his head at a learned frequency, feels just a certain way, and it’s coming. He looks up.

The metal coming straight down on him shakes and shimmies, side to side and slowly unbraces itself from its mooring above and it begins to come straight down. He looks up

HOOOOWHAMP. Emphatic end, command from above. WHOOOOOOOH. Measured ascent, questing voice. He looks down. Square of metal has formed a cavity, foot high, two long. VHOOOOO and it’s gone. HOOOOOWHAMP. The ground rises to meet it and the air displaces to greet it. WHOOOOOOH. And why do you continue to stare? I do only as I’m told. Square of metal, same as before, only not the same VHOOOOO. And here we go again. He’s been placing the metal gently under its doom, a final tenderness fo HOOOOOWHAMP. Seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall WHOOOOOH. Find. Square of metal. VHOOOOO. To the left: one with a mallet; to the right: one on a button. The metal vhoooos away and the one on a button is in action. One with a mallet pounds on four corners and vhoooos it down the line. Nothing to see farther down save darkness and some yellow and orange and puffs of steam every fifteen minutes.

He’s remembered something about home, something supermarket, something magazine? He’s forgotten. HOOOOOWHAMP. Demands, demands. VHOOOOO. Who’s raising such a din over there?

A man’s yell, galling, perforated, and a few more waft down the line, direction mallet. HOOOOOWHAMP. The metal is fine, good dimensions, everything VHOOOO fine. Mallet looks at him, eyes wide, then back down left, then down at his metal, pound pound pound pound. Hoooowhamp, must be nothing, but that racket over there continues. The belt shakes up and down just slightly BBAPBBAPBBAP on the conveyer, metal vibrating about, shifting hooowhammbbp just slightly. He removes the deformed mutant and awaits the next for more potential. Vhoooommbbp it would’ve fallen from the belt itself, now wouldn’t it. Shameful what’s going on down there, hoooowhammbbp, they’re ruining it.

Upon a shifting of air suddenly, he feels a breeze overhead, vhooooombbbbbppp, and wonders where the roof’s gone. It’s there—be brighter otherwise—but whither this new air? Another, direction mallet, he can almost hooowhammbbbbbbpp see it. PPING off direction button, and button puts up his hand to guard his face, ducking laterally away from an unseen. Everyone searches the skies for bombers or pigeons or peregrines. Take cover! PPIPEEOW and vhooooommbbbbbbbpp and the belt has a tear now, horizontal and moving down and up like a fault line and it all shakes, hoooowhaaammmbbbpp. A cloud cover moves in and another fighter whirrs overhead, and vhooooommmmbbbbppp, they’re getting so close now. Direction mallet hunches over and pulls his shirt over his face, running out, direction button. Direction button follows his lead, hooooowhaaamm-bbbbbppp, CRRRRRKKEEEEK, and on the floor a path of metal sheets follows out direction former-button. Through the new fog, vhoooo-ooo—ooommbbbbbbbb, men emerge waving their hands in front of their faces and heading out, former-button, wherever that leads. A great gun-metal leg stands idly, pillared, on the belt, and ssssssCRRRRRRRRRRNK

[Jeff Siegel is an artist, writer and other things. His site The Private Sector features all of those things and more.]