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Cement Factory

The local cement factory: a symbol for the body. Inside, the steel structure is engineered with complexity. Where are the drawings for this place? Or were the engineers welders by trade, and did they build as see fit.

The mountain is receding. It’s blasted twice a week and the leavings are loaded into giant trucks and poured though a steel sieve into the Grizzly where it is chopped into smaller bits and conveyed on a belt towards the crusher. The Crusher chomps further the bigger bits into small ones and from there it is conveyed to the first of two kilns. The kilns are (giant) cylindrical drums rotating at a speed of 10 rotations per minute. Inside the temperature reaches 3000 degrees centigrade. Hundreds of dangling 120 pound chains crush the limestone moving through into even smaller bits, which are conveyed to the second kiln, turning the mountain into a powder so fine that it runs through a final sieve that can hold water. The excess klinker gleaned from the mountain is held in the storage hall, or the devils hall as it is also known, for it’s hell like appearance. Silica dust runs rampant through the air, past our full shield ventilation masks and nestles snugly into our lungs. To pass the time, and break up the day we smoke cigarettes.

Will I work here forever? Will I become a part of the union and drink beers in the evening while watching basketball on the t.v. silently cursing my willing slavery. To prevent such dire events I have taken to self discipline. No ice cream. No smoking. No beer in the evenings. The ice cream part so far has failed miserably. The smoking part has been successful. I have quit, although with many pains and blank stares at the wall imagining my trip to the store and the luxurious chemicals infiltrating my blood stream and brain. One night past was especially difficult. If I wasn’t so tired from lifting the shovel all day I would have gone, but as it was, the energy expenditure involved did not equal the highs of nicotine. And sleep, friends, is a gift indeed.

That night, while my body did it’s best to fight the evil toxins, and to replenish membranes, I dreamt. And behold: The steel factory. Like a jewel on the bleak horizon of grime it beckoned like the emerald city of oz. I never made it inside, content simply to furrow lines in the soil that was the parking lot. And to dance. I danced the sacred rain dance in hopes of surrounding this body with flora.

The steel factory: an upgrade. With cigarettes out of the way it will be no time before I am running molten steel through dies to create the structure of our cities. Our cities: our being.

In lieu of smoking cigarettes I have taken to smoking marijuana. It's not addictive and builds an appetite, and allows the viewer to see things in intensity. The weed, however, acts as a depressant, and cannot be smoked at work, lest I fall into a vat of death. Cocaine, however, and a one two punch of assorted methamphetamine and dioxiline gives me the energy I need to help build solid structures of the mind. When my co-workers ask how I do it, I respond “Fring. Fring. Greeeeeeeee.” and sometimes my eyes run up into my head and I pass out from all the lovely.

5 comments:

sybil law said...

I always knew you were a health nut.
:)

Anonymous said...

I prefer chocolate factories.
Which is probably why i could never make it as a model.

Don't do drugs!etc.

John Dantzer said...

Sybil - You are an expert on nuts. My word verification is satabil a cross between satan and sybil. Once again word verification tells it how it really is.

Bon - Chocolate is in fact made in small batches in the shoes of gnomes out in the forest somewhere.

JMH said...

This all seems pretty reasonable to me, although I have no idea what dioxiline is.

John Dantzer said...

I made that one up.