We Grind Bones

Frost in the windowpanes, an icy gust in the morning. It only gets colder when the sun rises. I fall asleep watching TV, vignettes of early morning commercials force themselves on me as I awake from my dreams. A blonde white woman in an expensive dress turns and smiles to the camera. “Shopping.” A black woman flashes a diamond ring “jewelry.” An asian woman in a bathtub with bright red lipstick blows a kiss at the camera “makeup.” Everyone deserves to consume. It returns to the show, where a rerun of a detective procedural is playing. They found a baby in a trash bag at the bottom of a frozen pond in Wyoming. It belonged to someone in California. The detective is talking about how lucky they were to find it.

I shower with the lights off because I’m usually a little hungover. Never that bad but the florescent light makes me angry when I have a headache. Instead, a soft blue light beams through the translucent tiles at the top of the shower. It feels peaceful and warm, like I’m walking into a dream. I’ve always wanted to shower in here on days I don’t have to work, but I always sleep in and miss the soothing light that would make it enjoyable. After I shower I head straight to work, skipping breakfast. I prioritize my sleep over eating.

When I get there I find Drake in the middle of one of his lectures. He’s the other bone grinder in my Team. He’s directing his point to Reynolds, but looks around to all of us as he speaks: “Nobody is actually a vegetarian. The tomatoes, the cabbage and spinach you buy? That was grown using the very meal we make here. All things require the nourishment of the blood and the bones. It is the inevitable end of us all, to be consumed.”

Reynolds shakes his head as he changes into his protective suit, “you’re a fucking weirdo, Drake.”

“Oh? But we’ve all found our way here to the factory. Something has drawn us here. It is a need, both for us to work, and those who demand the fruit that is grown from what we process.”

Drake turns to me, “Ryan, my friend, you chose to be a bone grinder, did you not?”

“Wanted to be a paleontologist.”

He turns smugly back to Reynolds, as though he has proven a point vicariously through me.

“Viola, these paths we have followed are not coincidences.”

Reynolds shakes his head and shuts his locker, “whatever you say.”

“Reynolds, you are not listening. All I ask you to consider is your relationship with the food that you eat. You may call yourself a vegetarian, yes. But rot engenders growth. Perhaps some day when we are all gone, a beautiful patch of wildflowers will bloom from our final steps. Feeding on our flesh and our blood, and whose roots will twist and twine through our skeletons. And here is perhaps when you will finally see: Back into the primordial soup once more.”

As Reynolds and his Team leave to their part of the factory he turns back “I’m surprised you’re not a teacher.”

I finish changing into my protective suit and Drake slaps me on the back. “Ready to go to work, my friend?”

I go to my post and turn on the grinder. I wave at the bone counter but it just stares down at me as usual. I think it’s some kind of monkey, but not one you would see at the zoo. It has a pale round face that reminds me of an infant, but it has a white mane as well. The rest of its body is covered in short fur that ranges from beige to dark brown. It sits in a Plexiglas box with breathing holes at the top, holding a legal pad and a pencil. It looks at me, then at the bones, then back to me, as if saying “on with it.” I think it thinks it’s smarter than me, and that drives me insane.

I start dropping bones into the grinder. Sometimes people’s bones get mixed in (which I’m not supposed to say) but I grind those too. I told my boss about it the first time and she just shrugged and told me that anyone who wound up in a shipment to the factory probably deserved to be there anyway. I think there’s probably some truth to what she’s saying so I don’t have much of a problem grinding them. But regardless of what my boss says, I do feel nervous about skulls, so I grind those immediately whenever I get them. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m constantly grinding people’s bones. They’re overwhelmingly just the bones of slaughtered livestock. However, I’ll also occasionally get a monkey skull and wave it at the monkey-thing before I throw it in. It makes a tally with every bone.

Once I’m done grinding this batch of bones Andy comes and takes my bin. (He’s the wheeler in our Team.) He pushes it over to the loading dock. From there, he scoops a bin-full of bones out of the truck and hauls them back to me. He alternates between me and Drake to reduce downtime. There are many bones that need to be ground, and trucks are always coming and going. We also process blood here. In another part of the factory they empty barrels of blood into this kind of dehydration system, which then presses the blackish crust out on a conveyor belt.

I come across bones in fascinating shapes, giving me the urge to take one with me. Yet the monkey-thing knows I’m interested because I stop grinding. It looks at the surveillance camera then back to me. I have no choice, but I would collect bones if I could. I’ve found them interesting since I was a child, in terms of the stories they can tell. They contain epics, profound journeys, lives of excitement and splendor beyond anything we see today. My teacher in high school told me to be a paleontologist but I couldn’t pass the math classes you need in college. I tried several times, but the proofs never came out correctly for me. Other times I felt like I was solving the problem, but it would turn out that I had accidentally invented my own system for solving it, which was of course wrong. Basically, I had to take up the next best thing in order to pay the college back for having failed the math classes they say you need to be a paleontologist. I don’t think you need to understand advanced calculus to work at a dig site, but what I think is irrelevant. That’s pretty much been decided by them: If you can’t do calculus, you can’t dig for bones.

At the end of my shift I pull off my ear protection and hear the workers below singing. Sometimes I look down through the grated floor at their ashen faces as they shovel the bone meal into containers. I’ve never actually seen any of them enter or leave the factory. Often I’ll catch them gazing up longingly, as though they value my position as a grinder. I try to nod or smile to them when we make eye contact, but I’m not sure if they can see that through the grating.

As I’m packing up to go home Drake asks me if I want to get a drink with him and Andy. We usually go to the bar a couple blocks from the factory but I meet them there. First I go back to my apartment where I shower off all of the bone dust. I get dressed and head outside. By nighttime I’m numb to the cold I experience throughout the day. On my way to the bar I cross an alley and see two dogs having sex, the male looks at me with those glowing eyes animals get in the dark. Once it deems I’m not a threat it goes back to its business. Past the next alley I see two people doing the same thing. The receiving party is leaned against the wall while the dominant party turns and looks at me. The only difference between them and the dog is that I can’t see their eyes. They turn back to their business all the same when they see I’m not a cop.

Once I’m at the bar I find Drake and Andy in one of the booths toward the back. I order a beer and join them. This is the only time I eat on days I have to work, so I order a pizza as well. Drake usually takes a slice but never really finishes it because he’s always talking. Sometimes he tells us about the tombs they’ve plundered in Egypt. How since we can’t really read their language that we may as well be vultures picking the remains of a great noble elephant. Or what the purpose of naming an extinct animal actually is. I don’t know, in many ways Drake is one of the easiest people to talk to, in the sense that I don’t have to do any work. Drake talks, and I get to drink beer and eat pizza.

After Drake finishes telling his stories he asks if we want to go to a movie. I’m feeling comfortably drunk and not too tired yet, so I agree. Andy agrees because he loves movies, even though I’m not sure he completely understands them sometimes. For instance, back when we first started working together and we went and saw the re-release of The Truman Show, the first thing he said once it ended went along the lines of “Wow! I’ll bet he cleaned up in his lawsuit, and he got the really hot chick!”

When we get to the mall there isn’t a film playing for another hour so we decide to kill some time. There isn’t much to do here anymore. The blackness of empty storefronts pass by endlessly, as if there is a great evil the steel chains prevent from spilling out. We pass a DMV and an Armed Forces recruiting center. If these weren’t here I’d wager the mall would be closed by now. Not even the loudspeakers work correctly. Africa plays on the radio, but it’s slowed down and distorted. In one way it makes the song better, almost beautifully apocalyptic in a sense, as if we’re wandering the halls of a forgotten or dying realm. Most of the stores that are here have already closed for the day, such as the jewelry store you never see anybody go in to. The kind they use for money laundering. A bunch of old people rent a space to play ping pong.

We come across a room with several of those claw machines that are rigged so you can’t get the stuffed animal. They’re mostly filled with cobwebs, and flies buzz around in the flickering light of the ones that contain stale candy. Drake pulls out a quarter and slides it into one that contains bizarre sea creatures. The blacklight illuminates their glowing neon colors. When he presses button to begin the game his thumb leaves a defined print in the dust. He guides the claw slowly above the creatures, until he sees a backpack patterned with anglerfish gnashing their enormous teeth. His eyes grow wide “ohh,” he says “my niece would love this.” The claw descends toward the bottom, a plume of dust emerges as the arms open. Two of them reposition one of the straps so that the other slides underneath, and as if arising from the depths of the Mariana trench, the backpack ascends. Drake howls with excitement as the claw drags it across the box and drops it down the chute. He continues to cackle as he pulls it out of the receptacle. Dust flies from the backpack as he shakes and slaps it.

“But tonight,” he says, “this is mine.” He readjusts the straps and puts it on. We piddle around the arcade a while longer. There’s one of those basketball games but none of the balls have any air. Another is the Cyclone machine – where the light races around it in a circle, and you have to hit the button when it gets to a specific spot to win. There’s a message that says how many tickets you get for winning but there’s nowhere to redeem them. Finally we come across a rocket ship ride for kids. There’s a VR helmet that you put on to feel like you’re actually in space. The advertisement reads “what will you discover?” Drake puts it on and begins the ride. At first he laughs as the ship bobs back and forth, and for several minutes he lackadaisically sashays with the rhythm of the ride. Yet his expression begins to shift from his typical vacuous grin to a contemplative frown, and soon his mouth drops. By now the ride has stopped moving, yet he stares ahead in silence until he mutters slowly after a long pause “My God.” He begins to groan as his arms drop to the side. By the end he’s screaming and clawing at the visor of the helmet. At this point Andy and I decide to intervene, pulling him off the ride. He tumbles to the floor, where his hands scramble about on the gumstained carpet. Andy removes the helmet and rubs him on the shoulder “Drake man, hey, we’re right here. What happened?” He continues to look around frantically for a moment until he remembers where he is. “Oh,” he moans as he grabs Andy’s hand and kisses it. “How long? How long was I gone?”

“About five minutes.”

He turns to me and shakes his head as his gaze returns to the floor. “Five minutes. And to think I’ve seen Infinity.”

Andy helps him up “alright big guy, the movie’s starting soon.” Drake laughs nervously and attempts to return to his normal demeanor, poking Andy in the belly. “Okay big guy.”

On our way back across the mall a distorted version of Forever Young plays on the loudspeakers. We stop and look at a red truck parked in the middle of the concourse. There’s a sweepstakes that expires ten years from now encouraging us to enter and win it for free (plus interest, whatever that means). The truck has been there for a while too. People have drawn things in its coat of dust. Penises, swastikas, and smiley faces cover it like polka dots.

After moving on from the truck we notice one of the gates to an empty storefront is slightly ajar. The blackness inside is all consuming spare for the mall lights that are reflected from forgotten mirrors and chrome orbs. Drake looks into the darkness. “We have to know.”

Andy shakes his head and backs away. “Fuck that.”

“I’m not afraid anymore.” Drake ducks under the gate. I follow him. Andy does so reluctantly as he cusses. We pull out our phones and turn on the lights as we investigate. It appears as though this property is an abandoned shoe store. The angled mirrors and orbs bend the light from our phones in wild shapes, as though we are in a funhouse. My drunkenness is beginning to wane. Anxiety pounds in my temples, chugging like a locomotive. Fallen panels from the ceiling litter the floor, maw after maw looms above us. I don’t look at the ceiling in fear of spotting hundreds of glowing eyes. Rats gnaw at decaying shoes spilled from boxes. It seems as though this place had been cleared out in minutes. The sound of splashing water flows beneath us.

As we begin to cross the lobby, Drake arms himself with one of the brass poles from a clothes rack. I grab a belt and pull in the middle, it feels strong enough. The cash register has been strewn across the floor, pennies shine up at us like sets of watchful eyes. Looking above and below is too nervewracking, we may only gaze ahead. A lone door rests at the back of the property, the chain is unlocked. The stench of stagnant water permeates from it. We arrive at the door, Drake signals to us to shut off our phones. We stand in the darkness, I vaguely see his hand reach for the knob as he opens the door.

We gaze inside, the moon shines through the fractured roof. Water flows into a pit below, where steam rolls off the surface. Moonlight reflects brightly around the room. Several tunnels lead to unknown destinations. Factories around the city? Men sit bathing in the water, perched around the edges of the pit, their bodies steaming as they emerge. They look like the workers below the grinders. Their small ashen faces stare pensively into the water, and their tattered clothes dry on the broken pipes and rusting concrete rebar. Drake crosses himself. There’s no way down there, and no way up here. Before they notice us we shut the door and trudge back to the front of the store. After we get outside we stop under the only functioning streetlight.

Andy squats down and runs his hands through his hair. “Fuck that. Are those the…” He motions with his hand.

“The shovelers,” I reply.

“We’re under contract.” Drake adds. “We can’t mention it to anyone, or we’ll lose our jobs and get blacklisted.”

Me and Andy nod. Andy coughs and spits. “That’s enough for me tonight. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

We wave to him as he departs. Drake and I walk to the end of the block in silence before we go different directions back to our apartments. There isn’t much more to say. This place is a dead dream, we’re merely the caretakers of a mausoleum. We grind bones with machines nobody knows how to build anymore. Nobody knows how to learn, because nobody knows who’s actually in charge of anything. I don’t even know if this city has a mayor. It’s like everything is on autopilot, but we don’t know what the computer is thinking, or where it’s going.

When I get home I find my TV already on broadcasting the late night news: Deadly car crash. A woman on PCP mistook her infant daughter as a cheeseburger. A boy auctioned his own kidney. The sun will melt us all to goo within fifteen years. But there’s hope: an eight year old autistic girl taught her three legged corgi to play the Blue Danube Waltz – and now she’s tackling global warming. Talk show with Buck Hanson, tonight’s topic: How working eighty hours per week can save the world. Working is good for the economy, and people are all basically small, interconnected organs of the economy. Because of this, people should work as much as they can. A sexy blonde women works out using a home gym. A man rubs oil on her toned body. He has shoulders on his shoulders. You’ll be beautiful like these people. A cute girl is dancing like they do in anime. She bares bloody teeth and her tongue has been replaced by an isopod. It’s the one pulling the levers, I know it. I wake up screaming and change the channel. Archimedes’ Screw sent water uphill. The pyramids were impossible. We are in a lonely backwater of the galaxy. The aliens have come and had their fun, but they’re all gone now. We are alone here. Alone with the hateful sun that will immolate us all in fifteen years. That would be wishful thinking; everything is just so cold now. It’s like we’re in cryostasis. Nobody’s going anywhere.

I shower in the dim blue light of the morning. My mind feels muddled, as though there is an agonizing continuance between my waking hours and my dreams, of which the reality and fiction of the television melds with my unconscious state. I no longer dream in a traditional sense. I don’t have nightmares, instead I’m watching a horror movie, or sometimes I’m watching another man fall in love with the perfect woman. I am never the protagonist nor am I the antagonist, but an observer. I always used to have dreams in which I had murdered someone without meaning to, yet now I watch strong young men with sharp jawlines stab women to death with no recollection. I sympathize with all parties involved, but nothing more. I wake up and feel my dreams may as well have been a movie, because by this point there is little distinction. I often get the feeling that for years there has been no stopping point. My sleep is just another way I exist. I try to turn the TV off but I feel alone, I need it to sleep, to feel like someone is with me in my small barren apartment, keep the cold at bay.

I arrive at work. Drake isn’t as enthusiastic as normal. He nods at me as I approach my locker. Once we’re in our attire we head out to the grinders. I give the monkey-thing the finger – I’m not in the mood for its bullshit today. I grind for several hours, observing the workers below with more fascination while I wait for Andy to fetch me bones.

Vaguely through my headphones I hear and alarm sound. One of the workers has broken through the door into the factory floor. Security rush to apprehend him. He sprints across the floor as they pull out their tasers. As he approaches me I back away from the grinder, thinking he is going to attempt to attack me, yet as he makes it here he dives in headfirst. His screams rumble from my mind to my stomach as his fingers and arms are ground, but by the time the grinder makes it past his head the rest of his body hums just as all the other bones while it’s consumed. The teeth on the grinder are stained red and churn like some cybereldritch horror.

The security guards look at us, then at the monkey-thing, and make the motion of zipping their lips. We all nod in agreement, and they disappear behind the double doors. Then I turn to look at the monkey-thing.

It trembles and drops its legal pad. It doesn’t know how many bones are in the human body, and thus has no idea how many tallies to make. I hear Drake yelling until he grabs my shoulder. I turn to read his lips “Grind!” He yells “keep grinding! They’ll get rid of it if it can’t count right!” I begin to toss more bones into the grinder. One, two, three at a time. Once Drake runs out of bones and Andy rushes away with his cart he joins me. The monkey-thing screeches, smashing its fists on its Plexiglas box. It wants us to stop. But we know it will be humiliated and removed if it cannot count the bones correctly. So we continue doing our job.