The Blasting Principle

It does not matter how loud he shouts the boy will not stop crying.  The rules here are wrong.  

He tries to tell her when she gets home from work that it’s neverending. Nothing is ever finished.  She just snorts and he wants to shout at her, too.  The boy is crying and the orange squash is all over the kitchen floor.  

“Stop crying,’ he shouts.

His dad used to call it the blasting principle: knowing how many holes to drill, knowing exactly the size of explosion, knowing how strong the rock is below.  ‘When you get it just right the stone falls away like ice from a roof’ he’d say.

He misses proper work. The tasks they did; they were closer than anyone.  Start. Do. Finish.  The logic of the task held them together; each man part of a machine held together by respect and certainty.  He thinks of his dad; blue smudges of coal dust under his skin. His Dad, eating his tea by the fire.

He has just cleaned the floor. He will clean it again.

“Shut the fuck up!” he shouts but the wall does not crumble.  It is still here; but filled with more holes.