the old factory

The Old Factory.

Michael walked down the narrow old worn out road. The tarmac surface was cracked and pot-holed badly, and patched with new black bitumite which ran in zig-zag patterns across the street. The pavement and sidewalks were also old and narrow, and made from old gray pre-cast concrete slabs. Moss grew in patches along the cracks and the corners.

Alongside both sides of the road stood very old and run down factory buildings, built mostly of red face-bricks, with plastered borders here and there which were now a dirty white, and fading still. The windows in the high window-panes were mostly broken, thrown out with stones by other boys over the years, since this industrial area was deserted. All the factories and businesses which once flourished here, were now closed down, or moved on to new locations.

The sky was gray-blue and semi-overcast above. Its horizons were obscured to Michael by the tall city buildings. It was early morning and the daylight was still pale. He walked down Rebecca Street and turned at the corner towards Hutchins Road. The tall old red-brick factory buildings still stood everywhere he walked. He was alone in this part of the neighbourhood this morning and he found no-one else on the streets. Still he kept walking and looking about at the familiar old buildings.

Like most boys in the neighbourhood, he and his friends had scoured and played through all these old abandoned buildings over the years. He knew them all inside-out, and would never get lost among them. It was his neighbourhood and he knew the area very well. He clambered through a half-torn down fence, and entered the yard of the old automobile factory. This was one of his favourite places to play and pass the time.

II.

He entered the large building through the doorway where the main doors used to hang, and started looking around in the old factory. There was nothing here now but scrap-metal and dirt. The old building was decaying, and bricks and mortar fell from the walls, and lay strewn about.

There was no machinery left here, as it had all been removed when the factory was closed down. Only odd bits of metal, such as nuts and bolt, and few plates of rusted steel, remained. The solid old work-benches stood empty. The scars of years of work, by many men, were visible on their surface.

Michael picked up a small piece or roundish, green coloured glass which he fancied, and he put it in his pocket. He would take it home and put it in his collection of bit-and-pieces. Maybe he could do something with it…

So he went scratching and looking through the old building, looking for odds and ends to add to his growing collection of such stuff. Soon his trouser-pockets were half-full of pieces of scrap metal and plastic, and still he looked around and played in the empty old factory. In the one corner stood a huge old metal boiler, which had been half-stripped, and left abandoned to rust and decay. He stood and admired the rusted old colossus for a while, and then moved on through the building, making a turn on the opposite side. It was all pretty much the same, scraps of metal and plastic from the old automobile factory.

The dust on the floor was thick and grimy, and he shoes were getting dirty. He kicked an empty old paint-tin, and it rattled noisily across the floor. He was getting bored with exploring the old place, and decided to return back towards the residential area where he lived. He would go and see Billy, maybe he could bully him again a bit, just for fun.

He walked out the door and across the empty yard. When he came to the gap in the fence, he slipped through, and walked on down the street towards home. The old red face-brick buildings stood like ghostly sentinels on either side of the road.

Michael whistled a happy tune to himself as he walked on down the concrete pavement. Two sparrows darted past him in the air, and flew away among the old abandoned factories…