Torn skin revealing mechanical ribs

The lift has been out since Tuesday, so I've been taking the stairs up to the boiler house with a spanner in my back pocket, and tonight the whole building smells of hot oil and wet coats. You'd hate it. Mr Okafor says the new turbine will be here by spring if the railway doesn't lose it again. Until then it's me, the night fitter Dunstan, and a row of brass gauges that never tell the truth on the first try.

Something happened on the third floor, which is why I'm writing instead of sleeping. A porter brought up a crate of old drawings from the Victorian wing, stamped with the name of some firm that folded in 1911. Inside was a cutaway of a ribcage made from pipework, the ribs curving like the staves of a barrel, a gear train where the heart should be, and iron rods running down the spine into a little steam chamber. Someone drew it with such care you could count every rivet. Dunstan laughed and said it was the ugliest anatomy he'd ever seen. I didn't laugh. It looked to me like a thing trying to climb out of a body that had grown too tight for it.

I pinned it above the gauge board so I can see it when the pressure drops. Around two I went down to check the feed valve, and the whole building seemed to breathe, a slow knock running through the ribs of the pipes. I stood there with my palm flat on the iron the way you'd rest a hand on a sleeping dog. The needle settled. It always does, eventually.

Come at Easter if you can. Bring the good tea, not the tin you bought in Leeds. I want to show you the drawing in daylight, when it's only paper and not a warning.

Love, Tom