ronic isn’t it?, how faces of such sadness and exhaustion are leached into creating the gifts of joy.
Amid the purr of the machinery and the gentle hum of the sowing stations, unfolds the creation of a child’s best friend.
Decapitated stuffed bodies of fur, velour and cotton cue to obediently and separately waiting for their heads to be sown on, further beyond these faceless and souls balls of fluff wait for tiny black buttons to be jabbed into their blindingly bright skins. They reach the end of the cue arms wide open for embrace, ready to take its place in the world of marketing facades.
In the far right of the room a growing and neglected pile of bodies and cotton are being tossed. They are the ones that are deemed unfit. Unfit because their skin wasn’t the right shade of blue or their eyes were far too close to chant the little children outside the corrugated metal doors.
Safer than them yet shuddering from a metal walkway over the assembly room, I turn and carefully approach the other side. Immediately my nostrils take a beating from a toxic and acrid smell, my eyes follow to an even more ludicrous site. Thousands of meters of demure white fabric down and churn in large cauldrons of chemically engineered dye. Minute by minute ghastly neon colours suck the purity and innocence out of the fabric into dangerous vortex.
Surrounding them masked monotonous figures adorn desiccated and bland wardrobes, afraid that they dare not steal the spotlight from the real stars of this factory. Gravity drawn shoulders and bent heads scurry about the container, their sweaty palms shielded in the safety of their gloves. They are the ones who are truly trapped. Stuck in a cycle, waiting for the day that they would be replaced by the likes of a new shiny robot.
In the middle of this metal walkway is a plastic box that bears the title ‘Production Samples’.
In it is a pyramid more daunting than Giza, a pyramid of every kind of bears. Who ever thought the colours of a rainbow could look so haunting. One holds a blood red heart inscribed with the phrase I love you while another sneers in a blue bow tied ribbon. I pick one up, this one is painted pink, its fur so soft and seducing to my skin, its maliciously cheerful smile and beady onyx eyes staring into my soul. I drop it within seconds.
I turn back to look at the process and how it carries on again and again, no pauses, no rests only trying to engineer gifts of happiness.
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Jaineshaa