Blue collar workers clock in with pale timecards. They move crates from ships to storage containers, stocked stories high in bland primary colours. Forklift devices prowl the lego maze of boxes, moving packages to the lorries that wait quietly at one end of the site. Gorged with produce, they choose their moment and file onto the open roads of Britain. Within, the cargo rattles.
Like particles flung into a solution the cargo spreads across the land. Tolls are paid, boxes are unloaded. Warehouses and shop stockrooms are filled.
In one second floor bathroom several people attend to their work.
The liquid substance is a concotion of several chemicals bought from overseas supply companies brewing tailor made molecules in vats.
The bath is from Wickes. It is mass produced in vast moulds in distant factories. The plastic sheets that line the bath are industrial weatherproof protectives. They roll off machines at 2 square metres per second, perfectly clear. Now pale and dusty they hold the substance like dead skin.
The substance sits in a bath for several days. The solid substrate is carefully removed and packed into plasticine white blocks. They wear masks for the smell.
Nails and tacks of all shapes and sizes fill the store. Short black ones, long sharp silver ones. The electric lights slide over their narrow threads. There are millions.
Copper wiring is cheap. Mined from open veins in Chile, Wound by machines in miles and insulated in black rubber.
The wiring is nothing difficult. The soldering iron fuses its targets with star-like brilliance. Electricity flows through the walls in glowing veins, fresh from the distant pylons and the smoking power plants.
The satchel is one of millions on sale in all good clothes stores. The plastic casing is improvised from kitchen equipment.
The sun is beating down hard. The tar is soft underfoot. The machine mutters to itself for a moment before spitting out its ticket.
The man with the satchel sits down. The bus rolls away silently from its stop.
-Thom
