Section
“You have to be quicker!” Henry shouted above the metallic and pneumatic cacophony of machinery that carried meat around the factory floor. It was an endless drone of monotony, but whilst the noise continued, it meant that their jobs were safe. The machines were tended by an army of workers who tried to keep up with the demands of the machines which knew nothing of fatigue, of aching limbs, of the softness of humans, the machines did not think beyond what they were programmed to do.
“I am going quickly!” Harry defended, as his hands pushed into the stomach cavity which greeted him with a cavernous smile where the previous section had entered to carry out their task, removing the heart and lungs. Harry and Henry worked on the section where the stomach had to be removed. The factory was a complicated network consisting of: delivery of the raw product, slaughtering, butchering, processing and packing, all under one roof. The end product was unrecognisable from how it started. The system had been designed many years ago for another product, a meat which had grown too unprofitable to keep in production. A solution was quickly found to replace it with another meat which ensured maximum profitability for the company without having to redesign the factory. The sophisticated system ensured that the meat was borne with maximum efficiency and From meat travelled on overhead conveyor belts around the factory from one section to another. Outside the factory of white tiles, stainless steel and blood, the rich could not sate their hunger for the meat; they wanted it and they paid for it, they needed it now. Time was short and demand was great. Inside the factory the bright lights ensured that there was no night or day, a 24 hour operation of production continued, unceasingly. Day after day, month after month, the routine never changed. Workers came in, workers laboured; workers left, new workers replaced the old. It was a cycle of workers all doing tasks too sensitive for the mechanised, tasks that required the eye and skills of a human. The factory was a symbiosis of flesh and mechanics.
The meat would come round to Harry and Henry’s section, hanging upside down, skinned with the head removed. The meat was unrecognisable as anything other than just meat, it was better that way. Harry was having trouble keeping up with the pace; the past few weeks had been a blur of shifts and brief moments of dreamless sleep quickly replaced with other shifts. Callouses were beginning to harden over Harry’s fingers and palms, a natural armour against the demands, but it would be some time till they absorbed the punishment they endured. For now the aches burnt deep and the cuts and scratches itched and reddened. Harry had grown used to the continual drips of sweat that beaded down his pale forehead and the stench of the meat no longer made him queasy. The moist warmness of the stomach in his hands was a comfort from the cold and dry air of the factory floor. It was a slow process to become a real worker, a productive worker, but Harry was determined, he had something to work for, even his dreams were a continuation of the work, the same repeated in his mind’s solitude as it was in the day. He would be a worker but he had a long way to go to catch up with Henry.
Henry had been at the factory for as long as anyone could remember. Some said he was the only one still here from when production started. No one really knew, only Henry knew the answer to that, and Henry never spoke about such things, in fact: Henry rarely spoke to anyone else. There was little remarkable about Henry except for the thick pads of callouses that covered his hands which hinted at just how long his hands had been conducting the same routine. His bald head was unremarkable in shape and size, he was always clean shaven and his features were just plain and ordinary. Henry had no scars, nor any signs of disease showing the life he had before the factory, he had all his limbs and all was as it should be. Harry secretly thought that Henry seemed to have been born and bred for the factory, he was a perfect worker. Henry did his work as it was supposed to be done. He spoke little and kept himself to himself on the brief breaks eating his sandwiches which were cut into little triangles, crusts removed, as he read the single sheet paper he collected on his walk to work.
There was no idle chit chat when working with Henry, no talk of the game last night or the latest push by the collectors to clean the streets. No talk of girlfriends or wives. No talk about the streets they had all come from. No talk about the life before this job. No talk about where the meat came from, but then no one talked about that, no one wanted to talk about that. There was nothing but work with Henry, but Harry was happy to work with him nonetheless. It took skills to work as quickly as Henry. It took practice and it took a good teacher.
Henry plunged his hand into the carcass in front of him and, with an unseen twist and flick of the sharp blade, separated the stomach from the fibres which held it to where it rightfully belonged. His hand emerged, fresh blood upon the dark dried blood of the last. A history of the day’s work upon that hand Harry thought as Henry dumped the purple tinged organ into the metal bucket. A soft thump as it landed upon the others he had just as quickly removed. Harry still couldn’t do it as quick, his twists unseen in the carcass often resulting in his hand slipping off the slimy surface, nothing giving in his attempts. He would get it soon enough.
Another carcass spun round as the machinery sent Henry’s finished carcass off to the next section, replacing, never any respite. It was a continual process of meat. Harry was still struggling with this one, the stomach refusing his grip, mocking him with its slipperiness. At last it came free with a soft squelch.
“Careful boy,” Henry said as he looked over at Harry, his own arm deep inside another carcass. “Not too hard, you don’t want to split it,” he advised. “You split it outside, fine. You split it inside, it’s fucked and you are fucked. No one wants meat that tastes of stomach.” Henry always offered words of advice. Harry hadn’t split this one. He had split one yesterday, he knew if the supervisor saw then he would be thrown back on to the streets. He didn’t want that. No one wanted that, but there was little choice. Henry had covered for him yesterday. The next fastest man in the factory could only do one carcass to two of Henrys. The supervisor allowed Henry an occasional mistake. There were always eager people ready to replace, to swap the cold desolate life on the streets for one of sterile fluorescence and meat.
As Henry dumped another stomach into the metal bucket Harry’s carcass sped away from him and a new one hanging upside down by its feet appeared. At least the heads were removed somewhere else, he thought. He didn’t like seeing the heads.
Raucous laughter broke out somewhere across the factory floor, another long-timer was making the others laugh by dancing with the limbs he had removed from the meat, breaking the monotony. The grey-haired supervisor approached them and all fell back into silence and routine again.
“You ever remember what it was like?” Harry asked, knowing the supervisor’s attention was elsewhere.
Henry glanced over at him, furrowed eyebrows.
“You know, out there, before all this, back on the streets” Harry explained.
“Best not to think boy,” Henry offered.
“I can’t help it Henry, out there is why we are all here,”
Henry just shook his head.
“I mean,” Harry didn’t pick up on Henry’s silence “I mean there’s more than just this isn’t there?”
Henry remained silent.
“It’s not just meat,”
“It is. Meat, that is all,” Henry offered his wisdom, wisdom crafted from years within the walls.
“Nah mate,” Harry refused the teacher’s pearl. “This isn’t just it, for fuck’s sake, everyone does something for someone,"
Henry again offered nothing but a shake of his head.
“Soon I will have enough money to get her off the street,”
Henry still just shook his head.
“Sure I will, I promised her,” Harry looked across at Henry as the meat continued its process. “You have to have something mate. Everyone needs something, even you.”
Henry sighed, and raised his unremarkable eyebrows, furrowing his forehead. He looked up to the overhead tracks that clicked and hissed carrying the endless procession of carcasses from one end to the other.
Henry came back to now and turned his focus back to the meat in front of him. “Nothing boy, best forget that boy, this is all there is.”
“That’s better boy.” Henry said as Harry pulled the stomach out in one go, proudly offering it to the chute. He was quietly proud of his quickest job yet. Harry looked across at Henry, hoping for some nod or a smile to accompany the small compliment he had just received. Henry’s gaze was instead focused in its new carcass, focused on the gaping chasm his arm disappeared into again. No time to think, as Harry’s trophy was sped away to the next processer and replaced by another. The endless cycle gave no time for elaboration upon this, the last or the next. It was only what was before you that had to be done, and there was always something before you.
The next carcass shifted into the same place before Harry, the same place from where the last had departed and the next would settle. The head had been removed as usual, the skin all removed as usual, and the stomach cut open as usual. It hung by its feet and its arms hung by its side. All seemed usual. But something just didn’t seem usual to him. He looked closer,
“What you doing boy? Don’t look, just pull,” other words of wisdom offered by the skilled Henry “You look too close you think too much. Its meat, that is all”
But Harry couldn’t stop looking, it was the hands. The hands were normal sure enough, but it was the fingernails which his vision centred upon. This wasn’t a normal one. The collectors didn’t take ones that decorated themselves. The ones they took couldn’t afford to do this, this was a luxury afforded to those few who didn’t ever have to work. A luxury used by those who ate as much meat as they desired. Harry didn’t know how much a little vial of nail varnish cost, he had never had time to care for such things, but he knew it was expensive. The bright crimson nail varnish still clung firmly in its glistened sheen upon the dead fingers which hung from dead hands which hung from the dead woman’s body. The nail varnish indicated that things had changed. The demand had begun to exceed supply. Harry quickly did his work. He would have to learn even quicker now. If this woman was not safe then no one was. The polished nails swung in the metallic tainted air as the machinery took its meat onto the next section and replaced it with another. An uninterrupted procession of machinery and meat, of work and organs, and never-ending consumption continually performed its drama. It would still be a long time until Harry would be as good as Henry. To develop into something you admire, first you must think as it must think. But Harry didn’t want to forget, Harry wanted to get his woman off the streets. Harry didn’t want either of them to be meat.
