The Uninvited

garden furniture. The offcuts and shavingsfrom the closest sawing machine fell on toa conveyor belt, which transported them tothe overhead funnel of the machine in frontof us, which stood about four metres high.Sunny mouthed something I couldn’t hear,and directed me to the wide serviceladder. By the time we reached the toprung I was sweating and high on theatmosphere. Peering over the metal rimthat curved downward like a hanging lip,we gazed far down into the dark whirringhole of its innards.‘Long way to fall!’ Sunny Chen shouted,pointing down. The pulping mechanismworked like a giant food processor,accepting whatever it was fed andchomping it into a coarse mash ofwoodchips. ‘Turn you into hamburger!’