The shed

Inside the shed it is usually close enough to light, a constant twilight that its depths are never of any concern to the insecure. There are small but harmless rodents inside and above the floor Swallows have constructed nests of mud for their young. Between them they pick among the fractured debris of coal and decaying matter for small insects and unrecognizable sources of nutrition.

Not far below the surface there exist invisible turbines of a very fine construction and supported by a skeletal core not at all unlike the fragile web of arterial leaf systems. Its fabric merges faultlessly with the surrounding matter of the earth, running through it, absorbed by it, its structure unlike any mechanics that we know. It moves through the soil like a shoal of fish.

If you were to take a slice down into the earth and then watch very patiently with the help of a very sensitive camera running at very high speeds for many hours, it would be possible to perceive subtle tonal shifts that reveal this imperceptible machine. Also, with great care and silence it is possible to discern the tiniest sounds of occasional shifting grains like the acutely inaudible movements of beetles or worms.

Inside the coal shed all of this is impossible to know.