just another day

Soft gray tendrils of smoke wind their way upward gently wreathing a face. The face is ordinary, if any face can truly be considered ordinary. Within it’s lines and the repeated flexing of various muscles there is revealed a concentration upon some task at hand. The nose acknowledges prior acquaintance with the acrid odor the smoke carries with a slight widening of the nostrils, the eyes squinting if ever so slightly. Protective lenses cover those narrowly focused eyes. Eyes of blue they are, behind which a lively, creative but well disciplined mind is at work.
“Take thirty thou, then another thirty thou, then five thou then stop and mike it.”
Fingers oil stained and scarred attached to work hardened hands with the simple deftness of long years of practice grasp a tool. The tool well used but always kept in perfect condition does its task one more time… …eight seventy seven, two more to go, the mind causes the finely lined lips to mutter and sends the hands back into action.
The hands pull the handle powering the machine to life yet again. The machine quietly emits whirrings, whinings and clickings among other sounds. Sounds familiar to the ears. Ears always listening alert for undesirable additions to the familiar chorus. Those ears all the while soaking up the familiar strains of a Chopin Piano Concerto.
The sensitive fingers reach out and rotate the cross feed handle, guide the carriage and grasp the lever engaging the automatic feed. A hand reaches for the small brush resting in the small tin of cutting oil. The hand delicately holds the oil laden brush gently against the whirling surface careful to stay clear of the sharp cutting tool. Long slim chips of hot stainless steel twist and roll away from the cutter falling to the pan below or bounce their way to the floor. There they join the many larger chips each sharp as a razor.
And the soft gray tendrils again wend their way upward. The eyes ever watchful, the ears attuned, the hands moving to the rhythm of the mind…