Rain on the Eve of Thanksgiving
There's rain everywhere, it's falling down so hard and so fast the ground hardly has time to soak it up. The ground around here has been pounded into compact little layers by heavy machinery, heavy trucks, and miles of circularing footprints of hardworking men going to and leaving from work for 55 years.
When rain water falls on land like this, land that is hardened layers down, it only mixes up the dust that has settled on the surface and makes it into mud that covers the impenatrable bedrock of clay. After 5 minutes, the water has made all the mud that it can and so begins to rise.
The men gather in the warehouse. Even goats have enough sense enough to get out of the rain, or so they say, and so the men too put themselves to work with minor things in the warehouse that pass the time while keeping themselves dry. Thunder rolls and a crane operator makes a thankful comment about not having to swing his boom around in this weather. Another 2 crane operators agree, as they all operate machines that reach up into the sky.
Water is falling on the tin roof and the muddy ground, and both are reacting to water the same way, not absorbing any of it, just letting it roll into piles and rise, the only difference is the tin roof makes an awful racket under the torrents while the ground is content with subtle tippity tats. The men laugh under the warehouse shelter, trading stories while the floor begins to get wet with water flowing in with a gentle stream. Thunder booms and drowns out all the voices for a moment, then rolls off into the distance slowly. The men have to repeat what they were saying three seconds ago and then carry on again with the rest of the story or joke or latest news.
Mike sighs and laughs ironically as his walkie-talkie goes off, alerting him that he has a customer. He reaches up behind his head and pops the hood of his yellow raincoat over his baseball cap so that the edge of it comes near to the bill. The water drips down off of it as he walks out from the warehouse bay door, the drops just missing his grey-haired mustache by a few inches. He's a man of small stature and an honest worker, marching underneath the rainclouds of dark grey to the steel yard.
The water's still rising and now it's ankle deep in the warehouse. Those with boots joke about those with just shoes. A few of the grizzled veterans of the scrap yard with high boots still don't say anything because a minute later, their socks are wet too, and they keep on working.
There's still a crew out on the yard, working despite the rain, on machinery that towers over two stories tall. A crane at the end feeds the massive machine with metal and the metal is translated into smaller pieces. No matter how many pieces go in, no matter how large they are to begin with, they end up the size of a man's fist, thousands of pieces now, shredded into bits, hot from the process. The rain delves and sifts through the ever-growing pile of metal, causing clouds of steam to rise steadily, big clouds of steam at first, and the crew keeps on working, despite the rain.
Mother nature has patience and persistence but she saves it today.
The rain slacks off and drifts away in the clouds, leaving the mud it created, the small pond in the warehouse, and the echoes of thunder on the horizon.
The men go back out into the fields of the scrap yard and go back to work outside and away from the flooded warehouse. It's harder to work in the mud, technically, but everything seems easier instead and everything seems easier to be thankful for after a hard rain like today's.
When rain water falls on land like this, land that is hardened layers down, it only mixes up the dust that has settled on the surface and makes it into mud that covers the impenatrable bedrock of clay. After 5 minutes, the water has made all the mud that it can and so begins to rise.
The men gather in the warehouse. Even goats have enough sense enough to get out of the rain, or so they say, and so the men too put themselves to work with minor things in the warehouse that pass the time while keeping themselves dry. Thunder rolls and a crane operator makes a thankful comment about not having to swing his boom around in this weather. Another 2 crane operators agree, as they all operate machines that reach up into the sky.
Water is falling on the tin roof and the muddy ground, and both are reacting to water the same way, not absorbing any of it, just letting it roll into piles and rise, the only difference is the tin roof makes an awful racket under the torrents while the ground is content with subtle tippity tats. The men laugh under the warehouse shelter, trading stories while the floor begins to get wet with water flowing in with a gentle stream. Thunder booms and drowns out all the voices for a moment, then rolls off into the distance slowly. The men have to repeat what they were saying three seconds ago and then carry on again with the rest of the story or joke or latest news.
Mike sighs and laughs ironically as his walkie-talkie goes off, alerting him that he has a customer. He reaches up behind his head and pops the hood of his yellow raincoat over his baseball cap so that the edge of it comes near to the bill. The water drips down off of it as he walks out from the warehouse bay door, the drops just missing his grey-haired mustache by a few inches. He's a man of small stature and an honest worker, marching underneath the rainclouds of dark grey to the steel yard.
The water's still rising and now it's ankle deep in the warehouse. Those with boots joke about those with just shoes. A few of the grizzled veterans of the scrap yard with high boots still don't say anything because a minute later, their socks are wet too, and they keep on working.
There's still a crew out on the yard, working despite the rain, on machinery that towers over two stories tall. A crane at the end feeds the massive machine with metal and the metal is translated into smaller pieces. No matter how many pieces go in, no matter how large they are to begin with, they end up the size of a man's fist, thousands of pieces now, shredded into bits, hot from the process. The rain delves and sifts through the ever-growing pile of metal, causing clouds of steam to rise steadily, big clouds of steam at first, and the crew keeps on working, despite the rain.
Mother nature has patience and persistence but she saves it today.
The rain slacks off and drifts away in the clouds, leaving the mud it created, the small pond in the warehouse, and the echoes of thunder on the horizon.
The men go back out into the fields of the scrap yard and go back to work outside and away from the flooded warehouse. It's harder to work in the mud, technically, but everything seems easier instead and everything seems easier to be thankful for after a hard rain like today's.