All thats left are Factories

'I once had ambitions - mild hopes -' he said 'and now all I have are factories'.
Grey day, low horizons. I drink a cup of tea.
'Factories..?'
'Oh you know' he gestures to the shallow buildings behind him 'wide rooms where we spend all day fitting bits of metal into other bits of metal.. The kind of place where you learn to day-dream really well, because you're too tired to do anything else'.
I imagine the factories going on into a horizon beyond all horizons. Endless shifts spent in abstract and virtuoso displays of fitting bits of metal into other bits of metal.
'But what for? What is it all for?'
Something curious happens to his expressions. Ripples across his forehead.
'For. For themselves.'
'The managers?'
'The bits of metal we spend all day fitting into other bits of metal. They're running the show. We do it for them'.
My cup of tea is cold, grey like the day and those low horizons.
I would like to say to him that at least I have hopes - mild though they may be - but he is gone, and all there are, of course, are the factories.

(with apologies to Thomas Ligotti, our most temporary of supervisors)