On Schedule, by Phillip E. Temples

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

As on most days, Lenny was obsessed watching the construction of the new building next door from the comfort of his eighth-floor high-rise condo. He was fascinated with the order and planning of the project. A part of him daydreamed that he was the construction project manager of the project, responsible for all aspects from pre-design to close-out, and guiding the construction crew in transforming the vacant lot into a state-of-the-art, seven-story biotech building with office and lab space.

As he watched that day, three men were busy excavating large pits that he assumed would be used to help anchor the building foundation. The backhoe operator finished scooping the final shovel of dirt from a pit. He efficiently transferred the dirt onto a large pile adjacent to the hole. Then one of the workers gave the operator a hand signal that Lenny had not seen before. Suddenly, without warning, the operator brought the shovel careening into the second worker knocking him into the hole. Lenny was horrified.

Just then, another worker standing nearby wrestled a hose from a nearby cement mixer over the hole and sprayed a stream of wet cement onto the fallen worker. Within seconds, the man was buried alive by the thick, gray paste until there wasn’t a trace of him left. The backhoe operator walked up to the two other construction workers and slapped them on the backs. They all seemed in jovial spirits.

The dead man must have been a real asshole, Lenny thought.

The backhoe operator happened to glance up and catch Lenny looking at them from above. The others glanced up, too. After a few seconds, the operator tipped his hardhat at Lenny. Lenny obligingly nodded back.

Anything that improved morale and kept the project on schedule was okay in Lenny’s book.

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Phillip Temples resides in Watertown, Massachusetts. He's had five mystery-thriller novels, a novella, and four short story anthologies published in addition to over 190 short stories online.  Phil is a member of GrubStreet and the Bagel Bards. You can learn more about him at https://temples.com.