DUST (standard:Creative non-fiction, 931 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Oct 21 2008	Views/Reads: 4332/2338	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What is a "job"? What is the meaning of "work"? What feelings are so compelling they can take the place of making money? Here's my answer. Let's hear yours.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

emptiness of my life.  It explained my dedication to this work: 
maintaining machinery.  How I loved to touch the polished spindle of 
each headstock.  What joy to caress the soft chevron seal that slides 
endlessly around its chromed circumference!  Not everyone knew what 
glorious music these rugged tools can make.  Certainly not the robot 
operators.  But I could appreciate the construction of these 
instruments for industrial production.  It was my joy to check their 
gears, to tune their taut drive belts, to test the response of their 
hydraulic controls, to shield their temperamental electrical circuits 
from the dust.  Every day, my men and I maintained the sensitive 
instruments of  this orchestra, tuning each one to play in harmony all 
day long. 

Maybe I don't really have to get away, to sit in some stuffy concert
hall in Cleveland.  Here is my orchestra.  Here is my smörgåsbord.  
Here is my library, my university, my clinic, my mansion. 

Here is my prison. 

* * * * * 

Seattle WA, October 15, 2008 

Gerald X. Diamond 

Copyright 1991


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