‘Where’d you go Nigel?’ Harlow yelled out while looking out toward the infinitely spiralling network of ladders that encompassed her newly designed A8-2340 grain silo.
Tense with apprehension, she had been waiting for nervously for the test graining process of her new silo and was worried about how explosive it would be when compared to the reclaimable components of the last series that she designed.
After an explosion it would be easy to cast the nets of blame over an architect–many didn’t even wait for the explosion–for their work was a thankless one often leading them to impressive cardio: it was an architect’s job was to design the un-designable and then be hunted down in the manner of a fox until they apologised for their crimes against the construction industry.
But it could never be said that Harlow was bad at either portion her job. If you were to ask any worker in the industry, they would happily line up to describe her as an excitable, fleet-footed maverick, grain silos were just become one of those tricky subjects that were as hard to design as they were prone to being combustible.
Silo designers have attempted to construct an encapsulating grain unit (EGU) since grain developed the need to be stored, and, as yet, had been unable to implement something capable of withstanding an explosion while simultaneously experiencing multiple implosions.
Clattering her favourite Vernier calliper against the steel frame of the silo, and further knocking it away from a correct measurement, Harlow gave another shout to her assistant in hope that he hadn’t gone grain deaf and in a keenness to find out how close they were to the primary combustion testing.
Born with brow furrowed, Harlow had grown to define herself as a forward-thinking engineer, yet to be held down by the realities of accurate mathematics.
‘It’s not what a ruler can measure, but how you decide measure with it,’ she would yell at young apprentices mere moments away from failing their written exams, ‘if you allow yourself to become bogged down by facts, you’ll only ruin your boots, and what then? There are facts all over the carpet and everyone is yelling at you! “Oh no Harlow, you’ve ruined the science again, how can we measure anything with all these facts over the good rug?”‘
Mad with intelligence, Harlow’s designs were hewn from a brutal simplicity, ‘build it strong,’ she would say time and time again, ‘if you’re expecting to prevent the grain fires in the first place you’re essentially spitting in the eye of Prometheus, as difficult as that would be.’
Some years ago, she had become the youngest professor at the University of Adelaide, while still being the longest serving perpetual student that was allowable, and, as a strange turn of events, had the dubious honour of being the only person in the Southern Hemisphere qualified enough to mark her final exam: ‘it was a well-earned 82%,’ she remarked at the time, ‘showing a grounded potential with, albeit, quite lofty ideals.
‘We always lose the 10mm sockets,’ she barked at Nigel while still waiting for him to reply, ‘If I’m going to make the next silo right, I will make it out of every damn bolt on the metric and the imperial scale excluding the bloody 10mm, we’ll never be short of the correct spanner then, that’ll show it!’
It has often been said that Milford grain’s construction practices were like trying to clean a square hole with a round cake of soap, no matter how polished the outside of the project could become, there was always a small clump of failure left in the corner.
How many times had Harlow argued with finance over the material costs? How many requests of high-pressure fire suppression system had been replaced by the idea of an enthusiastic work experience student holding a fire hose? Yes, Harlow was all for job creation, but this wasn’t a problem you could continue to throw unskilled labour at, results cost money, and if you are happy to cut corners you’ll just end up with a ruined cake of soap to create some kind of failure rhombus.
‘I believe I’m lost,’ Nigel’s voice echoed and bounced it’s way around the inside of the empty silo until it reached Harlow, ‘Why are there so many ladders? I feel like I’m trapped in a half of a board game.’
‘I have noted your levity and shall dock your pay accordingly,’ she replied, leaning over the guard rail, and attempting to triangulate the reverberation of Nigel’s voice in some kind of rudimentary form of echolocation. ‘just head to the top, I want to test the new water drop system.’
‘Ok then,’ Nigel clipped, ‘If I can work out which way is up, I shall see you there.’
Pausing with the intent to throw something, Harlow considered her chances of hitting Nigel and bemoaned his stoically good fortune od positivity: if she were to clip his wings, for example, he would probably find out that running was really fun.
That was Nigel down to his bootlaces and it was exactly why he had been such a good assistant; in the silo designing game Harlow knew that you had to be malleable, you needed to size failure by its lapels and scream at it, yell right in its face until it felt awkward enough that it left the room, ‘They’re mad,’ failure would say, ‘I hope I didn’t do anything to upset them,’ but you’re not upset you’re just sitting pack with a cool cup of achievement and revelling in the warmth of a pub named ‘triumph’.
This silo would be a success, this would the crowning achievement that would send Harlow into the stratosphere and forge her into the unforgettable names of history. A room of water barrels constructed right above the grain chamber, a suppression system automatically able to be deployed in the advent of a fire, gravity finally achieving a use that you didn’t have to sit under a tree for.
Puffing with the exhausted breath of a champion of lethargy, Nigel had reached the hatchway and loped himself up the final ladder of the silo.
‘Who are we getting to carry all the barrels up?’ he asked, sprawling himself across the floorboards and having a very brief cry, ‘They’d find it hard without any stairs.’
‘Stairs you say,’ Harlow replied, suddenly stuck by an idea vague enough that the higher-ups would assume to be too technical not to finance, ‘If we replace the ladder network with a single set of stairs, our ladder overheads will be next to nothing.’
‘This could be a master work!’
Time would tell and has often been told before, whatever the results of the silo test, Harlow’s adamance of standing on its roof would be but a moment in a longer narrative of human endeavour.
The achievement of failure often holds greater lessons for the survivors to learn from.
And so, to sky above, with the ground below, we reach for starlight.
J. McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 