A gray bird

Aleksandr Piatkov

                A gray bird

A gray bird, slightly larger than a sparrow, sat motionless on a mound of

sawdust newly thawed from the snow, its feathers ruffled and its long,

sharp beak pointed straight at the sky. It was warming itself in the spring

sunshine in a quiet corner by a high fence, topped with barbed wire on

white porcelain insulators.


We stood nearby, heads tilted back like the bird, staring in bewildered

 amazement at the twisted apex of the truck crane boom. This steel

giraffe hung its head in perplexity over a massive surface plate, which

Mother Earth had already claimed halfway into her yielding bosom.


Ahead lay a difficult conversation with the head of the transport
 
department a man who wielded absolute power over all the wheeled

fauna bounding briskly across the factory grounds. The plate was needed

to manufacture large aluminum lids. With these lids, we were meant to

satisfy the natural necessity for cooperation with a sister factory.


Misfortune, as they say, never comes alone. When the plate was finally

brought into our new, tall, and spacious workshop, it was unloaded not

quite where the assembly crew would have liked it. Encased in glass walls,

the experimental pilot shop harbored a peculiar spirit of impromptu and

improvisation.


Those fashionable glass walls shuddered, releasing thick clouds of dust

from every crevice. A young slinger, too lazy to drag heavy, unmanageable

slings from the adjacent bay, had decided to make do with thin ones but

he got lucky. His heavy boots managed to flash through the air and land in

a spot that, while dusty, was perfectly safe.



To any civilized person, it is clear that aluminum lids the size of an average

kiosk roof are meant to cover something important especially if they

also come equipped with a torsion bar. Such products are packed into

sturdy wooden boxes, lined on the inside with thick black paper.


At the workshop gates, from which finished products are usually hauled out,

there grew a pyramid of these boxes, which resembled Egyptian sarcophagi.

They had been brought in by Uncle Vitya, a limping carter from the

woodworking shop. He lived not far from the factory in a neighborhood

called "Kopay" (Dig-it). The name originated from the fact that people there

used to build dugouts, or, at best, "nasypukhi plank structures with

sawdust or soil packed inside the walls.


Naturally, Uncle Vitya held these boxes, made of thick boards dried in

specialized kilns, in high regard. A pair of such boxes could easily make up

half of his house. Yet he did not complain; he was even pleased that he

could occasionally order wood chips for kindling and slabs for minor

construction projects.


The fire inspectors, however, viewed the boxes in a completely different

light. Since all these treasures beautifully blocked the entire bay from wall

to wall and from floor to ceiling and were also in immediate proximity to

the spray booth the person responsible for fire safety was issued a fine.

But that person's face did not remain long and drawn; it soon dissolved

into a blissful smile when an order was announced granting bonuses for

completing the cooperative production quota.


I recall that little bird and think that perhaps its ancestors had nested for a

thousand years on the very spot where we tried to wrench that ill-fated

slab from the earth. I recall Uncle Vitya, too, whose peace in his humble

dwelling was meant to be guarded by those formidable products, sealed

with gleaming white aluminum lids. How grand it all was, and how quickly

it all crumbled!


Perhaps it crumbled precisely because Uncle Vitya lived much like that bird,

practically in a nest, and just like her, kept looking fixedly somewhere

upward, trying to discern his happiness there.



© Copyright: Aleksandr Piatkov, 2013

Publication Certificate No. 213042501681