When the warm beer and stale cigarettes could no longer drown out the vibrating industrial beast, we held onto the hope by turning to cartoon love stories and redheaded angels looking for shining armor, but willing to settle for rusted chassis, which was good because it was all we had to offer. We looked to them for salvation but the truth was, they were just as tired and strung out and beat down as we were, and no matter how tightly we held on to each other, we would always slip away afterwards.
On it went, never ending until the great monster reared up and swallowed one of us whole—geared teeth tearing hunks of ragged flesh from the body and vomiting out splintered bones. No matter how many sacrifices we gave it, the beast was always hungry, and there was always somebody willing to climb into its jaws. Blood and oil and sin laid out on the factory floor in a stain that won’t wash away even when it’s gone.