My appetite for destruction

I stopped today on my way home to admire St Mary's Hospital being torn down by a giant crane. In case you're wondering, "admire" is the right word. I was in awe of this event I was witnessing for the first time, and found myself having to stop and stare at the demolition process, with my mouth slightly open. Soon, more people joined me.

As I was watching the spectacle, it came to me that cranes must have been modelled on dinosaurs, not birds - as the name suggests. Its big jaw, hungry for concrete and metal, was happily devouring the building, floor by floor, window by window. It reminded me of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park tearing off bits of buildings - and occasionally people's heads, of course. These "bits", sometimes the size of buses, smashed down five or six stories down to the fenced grounds. I could feel the thud of the impact on the pavement below me. I thought to myself that the vibrations must, ironically, feel much like it would when a Tyrannosaurus Rex takes a step towards you (and then eats you). Yet I was safe, as this was only an urban T-Rex, roaring away within its enclosure.

There was a method to the gluttony, however, as the beast had to chew through pipes and supportive cables, before it could rip off a separable chunk. It was probably just more playful than hungry though, since it spat out everything it could bite off. Sparks were visible in the nightly dark as concrete slabs frictioned against each other on their plummet down.

I guess the correct term for these monsters is "excavator", although the machine was doing more munching away, than it was "excavating" - a word which to me only conjures up images of archaeologists dusting away excess sand from an ancient clay pot.

I let out a faint "wow" blended in an indetectable sigh, grabbed my LIDL shop and walked on home with a smile on my face.