Safety rules are written in blood

As the blood-covered stretchers were carried away, screams fading in the distance, all the eyes concentrated on Jim.

“I wanted to replace him”. Jim said apologetically. “The boss said he’ll fire me if I ever exchange shifts with anyone again”.

Before anyone could reply, the foreman returned, wet spots of blood visible on the dark fabric of his uniform. His heavy stare ran over everyone’s faces, all grim and pale as his own.

“The fool decided he’s one smart guy and blocked the safety button” he spat on the floor. “He wanted it easier for himself. Now he is a one-handed cripple. That’s what you lot get for not following the simplest instructions”.

One of the elder workers muttered angrily “We seriously need to call for a priest and purify the damn machine”.

“I can’t hear you, Rommy!” foreman roared “Dare say that louder?”

The grey-haired worker lowered his eyes to avoid further angering the boss. After making sure that no refusal remained, the foreman pursed his lips and barked “Jim, you work on Bloody Mary tomorrow”.

Bloody Mary was the nickname the workers gave to one of the rolling mills. The new one, most advanced and efficient, the company pride and flagship. It produced twice as much all the other mills combined, and, obviously, the top managers were not willing to hear one bad word about their favorite toy.

Yet the workers had lots of those words. Working with metal is never completely safe, but Bloody Mary drew more of their blood in a year than the rest of the machines could had had in ten. It started with small things that everyone was long used to – gashes from chips on the workpiece edges, burns from flying sparks and droplets of red-hot metal, clothes caught and torn between rolls. Smashed fingers were worse, but not out of the ordinary also – a rare worker here could present a complete set of those.

So the new machine was not regarded as anything special, until two months after its installment Harry Tooms got his left eye burned out with a drop of melting metal. He was supposed to use a protective face screen, of course, but it was hot enough in the workshop as it is, and the screen made it even harder to breath and see, so workers often lifted the screen, and no one ever got burns as bad as Harry had that day. Two weeks later, James Rommy tore the whole length of his arm on the sharp edge of the cast when he tried to carry it in his hands instead of using heavy awkward pincers. He barely survived the blood loss and his blood, sprayed all over the mill, gave it the nickname.

The chain of injuries went on – feet crashed under slabs that were not caught in time, shoulders wrenched out when an unbuttoned sleeve was jammed between the rolls. After each incident the technicians gave the mill a complete check-up, but never found anything wrong in it. Yet the superstition started to form among workers, the image of blood-covered, possessed machine, hungry for more human pain. It eventually led to a protest when workers refused to work with it. Of course, the company was not going to shut down the most efficient equipment because of some delusions, and the foreman came up with a brilliant idea – he turned the “Bloody shifts”, as the workers called it, into a penalty for being late, being drunk, low productivity and other failures. Which, of course, made the myth surrounding the Bloody Mary only stronger.

So, when Jim Sant, a young, naive, enthusiastic man was assigned to the Bloody Mary right from his first day at the workshop, no one doubted he will son fall prey to the machine’s bloodlust. Yet Jim laughed off their sympathetic stares and their fears. How could the machine really crave for human blood? Especially this machine, a top-notch technology masterpiece. Jim was enamored with this mill, its shining rolls, playful blinking of lamps on the control panel, smooth movement of levers, hot breath of the induction furnace, rhythmic murmur of the engine, as loud and vigorous as his heartbeat. Two weeks passed, and Jim was completely fine. A month passed and not a single scratch or burn mark marred his skin or even his uniform. Workers watched him, humming cheerfully in sync with the machine engine, or wiping it carefully at the end of the day, and whispered “He tamed the demon”.

The only thing spoiling this harmony was the foreman’s idea of using the Bloody Mary as a penalty. He was not willing to abandon such an effective instrument of discipline, despite Jim’s pleading that the rest of the workers were simply too negligent for such a powerful device. And, naturally, no one except Jim could go through these nervous shifts unscathed. So, Jim began trading places with the punished workers when the foreman was out of sight. He was spotted eventually, and earned himself a long harsh talk and a fair share of threats. No longer able to cover up other’s mistakes, he had to wait for their penalties to end before he could return to his favorite workplace.

“Good morning, Mary” Jim said the morning after Pete Fom had his hand chewed. “How are you?”

He picked up the common habit of calling the mill with the nickname eventually, but he never called her bloody, of course.

“Let’s work hard today, shall we?” He went on, even more excited than ever. “This is going to be a great day”. During the shift he was in high spirits, his hands flying between levers and buttons. His eyes, however, constantly darted to the large clock on the walls, as if trying to make its hands move faster.

“So soon, so soon” he was humming when the last minutes of the shift remained. “In half an hour I will propose Jenny, and I’m sure she will say yes and we will be so happy together”.

At this moment, something thumped in the machine engine and it jerked abruptly, pushing the big steel slab that was rolled through, to a side, jamming it tight.

“Damn it, that’s untimely” Jim muttered. He now had to release the metal cast by lifting the upper rolls. To do so, he needed to push two safety buttons at once, unblocking the rolls, wait for the machine to completely halt and cool off, and only then he could lift them. The safety buttons were placed far from each other, so you could only push one with each hand, to prevent the temptation of pushing them both with one hand and operating the rolls with the other. It was going to take lots of time, and will make Jenny wait.

Jim looked at the clock again. He will not make it in time if he’ll do it as intended. He looked around, made sure that the foreman was not around, picked a pair of heavy pincers and put them on one of the safety buttons. Nothing bad ever happened to him, and nothing will. He will be as careful and accurate as always, and everything will be okay. He pressed the second safety button with his left hand, and heard a familiar clank of rolls lock opening. Without waiting them to come to a stop, he checked that his sleeve is buttoned and not dangling, and carefully lifted the first roll with his right hand. The steel cast beneath was still skewed, and Jim had to lift another roll, feeling the heat through thick protective gloves. “Come on” he urged, pulling the slab from under the rolls. ‘Much better” he exhaled, satisfied, as he adjusted the workpiece and lowered the rolls. He wanted to wipe the sweat from his forehead, but something caught his right arm. It seems that the abrasion from moving rolls made the fabric of his glove unweave, and the threads got stuck between the rolls. Without thinking, he tried to pull his hand free, and his elbow pushed the pincers away from the button. Before he managed to do anything else, the rolls, working at full speed again, pulled him into hot tight hugs of his once beloved machine.

Severe violation of safety protocols. That was the result of the official investigation. After the incident something broke in the mill heart – its engine – and it had to be replaced. This made the workers, aware of Jim’s relationship with Jenny, whisper that the Bloody Mary became jealous and killed the only human she seemed to favor, along with herself.