Jack and Horn: A Factory Made of Falling

Jack stopped so abruptly that his camera swung against his jacket. Morning light caught the window ledges of the preserved brick tower; above them, another row of windows, and another.

“A factory,” he said. “I keep trying to fit floors full of machines into it.”

Horn turned back beside him. “Maybe the useful part was the space between the floors.”

Jack tilted his head farther. “Molten lead at the top. Through a sieve, so it comes out in drops.” He lifted a hand, then let it descend. “And all that way down. But why balls instead of little pointed splashes?”

“Surface tension,” Horn said. “Pulls the drops round while they're falling.”

“So the height buys them time to cool.”

“And there's water waiting at the bottom.”

Jack looked from the highest windows to the base, trying to hold the whole journey in one glance. “Solidifying on the way down, then caught and cooled in the water. Otherwise you've built a very expensive way to hit the ground.”

“A factory with one particularly committed direction,” Horn said.

A breeze tugged at Jack's jacket. He left the camera where it hung. For a moment the tower was harder to see as a building: it was a measured stretch of falling, the distance a small hot droplet needed before it could become shot.

“Small lead balls,” Jack said. “All this building for something you could lose in a crack in the pavement.”

Horn glanced down at the path. “Let's not start looking. We'll miss the rest of the morning.”

Jack laughed and stepped forward. The tower stayed behind them, its windows bright on one side, the long drop hidden inside.