Gasworks

The gasworks rises from the damp ground like a skeletal leviathan, its rusted retorts and corroded pipes casting jagged silhouettes against the bruised twilight sky. Brick chimneys belch intermittent plumes of sulfurous smoke that cling to the air, mingling with the acrid tang of coal tar and the metallic bite of ammonia from the outdated carbonization process. The ground beneath Dave’s boots is a patchwork of cracked concrete and oil-stained gravel, littered with broken glass and discarded wrenches from decades of deferred maintenance. Behind the main works, the power house looms—a squat brick building with a corrugated roof, its single grimy window casting a feeble yellow light onto the storage shed where Dave stashed the cutting equipment. The shed’s corrugated metal walls corrugate with age, its door padlocked but visibly forced open by haste. The area hums with the phantom echoes of industry long past, the clatter of unseen machinery replaced by the distant hiss of escaping steam and the hollow calls of gulls circling the abandoned yard.