A very short story I wrote a few years ago. I used to work in the textile industry. This was written after I left driving past a factory (not the one I worked in) in the process of being demolished. A workman was sitting eating his lunch. I imagined all the other workmen through the years when the factory was a facory.
The man sat on the
loading bay in front of the rotting corpse of the factory, that rose fully four
storeys above him. All about him the bulldozers
cracked the factory like an egg, for the silent workmen in helmets
and masks to fill lorry after lorry with the dust strewn remains of the
buildings.
The man did not have a
hat. The man did not have a mask. The man carefully unfolded the package that
lay beside him, and began to eat his carefully prepared lunch.
Dust swirled, and bricks
tumbled, and wood cracked, but the man sat, and ate, and wiped his face free
from the sweat of the mornings work.
A sudden
tilt of the head back towards the
factory, and a disappointed face, and the man rose and stretched, then folded
his carefully prepared sandwiches away.
He looked out at the
small crowd that had gathered on the hillside opposite the factory, that
watched and winced with every whip of the bulldozer against the crumbling
building.
A sudden shout and the
workmen turned to gather at the safety of the gate. Then the sudden gathering
of noise and the man walked deep into the bones of the factory that crumpled to
dust, and he was gone.
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