The Factory

As a child I was warned that if I looked at the light for too long it would send me blind and yet the stuttering flash and eerie blue light from an arc welder that crackled deep inside the factory would tempt me to steal a glance into its bright, menacing core. Mystery and danger lurked in the cavernous dark that waited beyond the door. The gray brick building was windowless and wore no signage. The locals simply called it ‘the welding factory’. I would pass it every day on my way to school, look into its depths to see spectral figures fluoresce then dissipate into the dark. Men in hinged metal face masks and leather aprons would emerge into daylight from out of the factory door to have a smoke. They looked like visitors from another world stepping out from their alien craft. Their art was a kind of sorcery stolen from the sun or the devil. On weekends I would sometimes sneak around and find bits of bent wire and metal tubing with black blisters growing out of stubs. It was treasure for a boy. I wondered what they made there and stayed alert in case some creature emerged from out of the dark with its red glowing eyes, the same that sometimes tormented me during those long nights of panic and delirium and unheard cries.