The mother character is sitting in front of a long sheet of stainless steel metal.  Her job is to buff this metal so it can be sold to hold together bigger pieces of metal.  These bigger pieces of metal may be used for pianos, but they are probably used to build very efficient helicopters in another part of of this dying port city.  She has been doing this for approximately 20 years.  The company has given her a small piece of metal with her name on it at a party that her daughters sent a lovely arrangement of roses to.  The man she was married to, the man she served soup to, the man who got drunk and hit her, hit her many times, once with a pot, once with a hammer, took pictures of women’s legs that evening.  I saw them.  They were all pictures of women’s legs.  There were no heads attached to them.  They all wore very pretty white strap sandels that evening.  That one evening she wished her daughters were there instead.  But they all sent a huge arrangment of roses that she took home and had for a long time.

One of the daughters had bought a rose that was supposed to last forever.  It was in a glass ball and had something like white oil in it.  It stood next to the couch in the living room and she wondered if that were really true.  That they had made a rose that could last forever.  She thought they probably could do anything with those big machines.  Those big machines made a lot of noise.  All the women complained of the noise.  Even at her funeral they talked of the noise.  I heard it!

When I went to pick up her apron from her locker.  I saw huge machines that made lots of noise.  Lots of women behind the machines and only a couple of men walking with clipboards.  The men wore white shirts with lots of pens stuck out of the pockets.  The women all looked dirty, in hand-made aprons and big glasses.  I saw the pipe wrapped with plastic and I saw that her machine was empty and the women were whispering.  And then it became quiet for a long time.

M. Kruszewska©1987