Concrete
written by: Christopher Mattravers-Taylor
Michael ached for the demolition work to be over. He ached to be off his feet and on the beer. A short distance from where Michael slouched, his father’s Brokk pecked at the concrete floor like an angry goose. The staccato assault of the demolition robot shook the steel bones of the building and deafened him, despite his ear protectors.
“Dad, this is taking ages. Let me do it,” he said, shouting over the noise. A taller version of his septuagenarian father, but just as bald, Michael glowered at the progress of the demolition. The Brokk’s moil point chiselled chunks of concrete from the cracked floor it sat upon and revealed the rebar embedded within. Rubble pattered down to the ground level far below them, and the hole in the department store’s floor grew a fraction larger.
“Just do your job. Mind the cable and hose,” his father said, growling like an irritated bear.
Pouting, Michael aimed the hose at the rubble below to prevent the demolition’s dust from triggering the smoke alarms. He rested the Brokk’s heavy power cable on his shoulder. Positioned on the other side of the hole for an uninterrupted view, his father frowned at the remote controller clipped around his midriff. Unlike Michael, he didn’t slouch, and appeared as fresh and energetic as when they had arrived on site eight hours ago.
Reverberations from the demolition hummed up Michael’s strained legs as if the building shivered in pain. Waves of sound bounced around the deserted department store that had been stripped of all its furnishings. Only a few blinding pop-up lights positioned around the growing opening in the floor remained. The cable and hose weighed down on Michael as if he had been supporting them for days. Impatience written across his shoulders, he dropped the lead and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Why don’t you break around the sides of the marked area and drop the whole lot? It’ll be quicker,” he said, whining like an attention-deprived child.
His father made a pushing gesture towards Michael, his eyes focused on the Brokk.
“I’ll do it. Go have a coffee,” Michael said. Fatigue tightened his words.
“After what happened last time? You’re lucky you’re here at all.”
Michael threw his hands in the air, and his father impaled him with a gimlet stare. “This floor’s old. We have to go carefully,” his father said, tapping the floor with a dusty boot.
“I can do careful. Why won’t you give me another chance?” Michael said.
His father rolled his eyes and resumed the demolition. Frustration burned in Michael’s chest, and his face reddened.
Applying delicate movements to the twin joysticks, his father maneuvered the robot. The Brokk’s hydraulics whined like a revving moped, and it inched further away from the jagged edge.
The site supervisor appeared in a doorway. Michael waved for his father to stop, allowing the suited man a safe approach.
“Andrew, have you got a minute?” The supervisor said to his father. “You need to sign the Risk Assessment and Method Statement.” Despite being in charge of the project, he cringed at the older man’s stony glare.
“Do you want this broken out tonight or what?”
“Rules are rules. Sorry.”
His father pursed his lips and shook his head, and then unbelted the Brokk controller. He walked around the hole, stiff, like an ageing prize-fighter. His father placed the remote on the now-quiescent machine and exited the hall with the supervisor.
“I’ll show him careful,” Michael said to the Brokk, his jaw clenched. Snatching up the controller, he cinched it tighter around his slimmer form. As he had suggested, Michael pounded the sides of the marked area. He pushed the robot up off its caterpillar tracks and onto its point for extra force. The machine broke through the concrete and crashed back down to the floor. The building shuddered.
His father reappeared in the doorway, brow furrowed. “You’re going at it too hard,” he said, his bellow almost as loud as the hammering machine. “If you damage the Brokk again, you’ll be out of a job. Son or not.”
“I can do this better than you,” Michael said, his face almost as red as his father’s. The machine smashed to the floor again. A fissure opened in the floor behind the robot.
“Look at that,” his father said, striding over and pointing at the crack. “You’re hitting it with too much power.” He clamped a hand like a wrinkled vice on Michael’s arm. “Stop. Before the entire lot drops.”
“Leave me alone. I’m fed up with you bossing me around,” Michael said, his eyes hard. He shrugged off his father’s grip. Michael forced the robot down hard once more, and its innards rattled. The area of floor under the Brokk lurched downward on one side with an ear-splitting crack. The robot slid down the slope, and Michael scrambled back. His father tried to follow, and his boot tangled in a loop of the Brokk’s thick power cable. Cursing, he tumbled to the floor.
His father cried out as the cable pulled him by the ankle towards the edge of the hole. Michael grabbed at him, but his hands moved as if embedded in treacle. His eyes met his father’s, widened in shock and pain, one final time before the Brokk toppled over the uneven lip. It fell into the pit below, accompanied by a deafening crash, and dragged his father with it. His scream dwindled as he fell. Michael gaped like a water-starved fish at the hole in space where his father should have been. The leaning floor broke free. It followed the Brokk and his father to the depths, accompanied by an even greater clamour and a mushroom cloud of particulates. A moment of silence followed before the smoke alarms, triggered by the choking dust, began their furious lament.
