Repost: "Farm Hand" (semi-fictional and bloody)

[r.p.m.]

The Farm Hand:
My partner and I were sent to the Imperial Valley to investigate a
rash of accidents in the rich
agricultural lands that make up the center of the "bread basket" that
is the backbone of the
California economy. State Insurance had been paying out large
settlements this particular year and
hired our company to investigate the causes of the increase in
accidents concerning farming
equipment and the largely Mexican workers manning that equipment.
After taking a harrowing and bumpy
ride in a small Cessna down the lush Valley, we finally reached our
destination, rented a car
and immediately set out for one of the largest farming co-ops in the
Valley that stretched for
miles and employed hundreds of workers at peak season.
This particular accident we were sent to investigate involved a
mobile, high speed threshing machine
that carries a crew of 8 people down the rows of crop and separates
the husk from the vegetable.
Being used nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the platform where
the workers stand became dirty
and crowded with plant material. Over time, and without the proper
maintenance, the normally intact
barriers that were installed to keep the workers safe from the
movement of the high speed threshing
mechanism had been removed to speed up the operation. Tragically, and
as we concluded, unlawfully
negligent, this resulted in one of the Mexican workers getting caught
in the long prongs sticking
out from the rotating drum, instantly pulling his body into the
hopper, shredding his body into
multiple, ragged parts. His amigo, in reacting to seeing his friend
ripped to pieces, tried bravely
to save him by reaching down into the hopper and he also got caught up
in the mechanism. Blood and
body parts were sprayed and thrown for yards on either side, and, as
the junior investigator on
this case, it was my task to take up close and personal photos of the
machine, just hours after
the accident....hundreds of them.
In order to do this kind of work, one must detach oneself from the
subject of the photos, from
the human tragedy, from the grieving co-workers and family members as
they stand silent around
the accursed machine, watching as you photograph everything on and
around the machine from multiple
angles. It is not an easy thing to do. One of the most horrifying of
the sights, as a result of
the ripping, tearing and shredding that the machine had done, was to
have to see the parts of what
was a human being, or, in this case, two of them, mixed together in
the most obscene combinations
of parts, strewn here and there. As I set up my Nikon and video
cameras I glanced to my right quickly
and saw that a hand, ripped and torn from the wrist, the whiteness of
the bone making a horrible
contrast to the brown and red of the ripped flesh around it, had, in
the insanity of the forces
at work during the accident, been accelerated and wedged up into the
neck of one of the beheaded
workers, there on the ground under the hopper. What a bizarre sight it
was. I froze in mid-move-
ment, telling myself not to look at it, yet compelled by the sight to
do nothing BUT look. I can
still see the look of horror and realization on the workers face, as
ripped up as it was, but to
have a three-fingered hand wedged up into the soft tissue of the neck
was almost too much for me.
I had to get a drink of water as I tried stoically to not throw up all
over the accident scene, the
wailing of the other workers very loud and near, just 20 feet to the
side.
I finally composed myself and got about the task of taking photos but
as I did so my eyes always
came back to that weird scene, his dead eyes wide, his nose ripped
nearly off to the side, the entire
right side of the face nothing but pulp and cheekbone....and that
hand. That hand that wanted to
move when I looked at it..NO! It DID move damnit..I SAW it. Sure, it
could have been reflex; sure
it could have been my warped, sick mind making it move. But IT MOVED
just as sure as I'm talking
to you now. I KNOW it was impossible...there's no way to explain
it..but that hand NEEDED to get
out of that neck..It HAD to get back where it belonged! I KNOW it
sounds insane but I could not
get that hand from my mind as I went about my gruesome task..that
LOOK! That HAND! God it was
horrible. And you know what? I STILL see that hand, all these years
later, crawling in the periphery
of my vision..especially like RIGHT NOW as I sit in a darkened room,
bringing back that HORROR of
a memory, I CAN see that HAND just to the right of me in the
corner!...THERE! THERE it is! Oh god...
I've got to stop
now, I can't go on...I've GOT to find that hand and TAKE IT BACK WHERE
IT BELONGS!

[Enchanting Angel]

wooo hooo lots of reading :)

--
Angel

remove iam to reply
===============
A boy and a girl,
the boy says a polecat stinks,
the girl says she cant smell a polecat,
but thats okay,
cause we're all still the same
Sherwood Mason, age 5
===============
r.p.m. wrote in message <37401337...@castles.com>...

[Scotrik the Wise]

On Mon, 17 May 1999 06:01:43 -0700, "r.p.m." <pat...@castles.com>
wrote:

>
>The Farm Hand:
Shades of E.A. Poe

Scotrik the Wise
"Well hello Mr. Fancy Pants..." Ash
sco...@nospam.midsouth.rr.com Remove the...Oh you know the drill