Heidelberg

I was in between dreaming and being awake this morning. I walked to the old building in Aspropirgos in the Wild West of Athens. My Heidelberg from 1968 was in the corner next to the green iron sliding door. Everything ready to cut. My hand made sticker of RATM "The Battle of Los Angeles" was still in front of the small lever that was cutting the air in order to feed the machine with cardboard. I put the machine in motion, moving the red lever in the middle position. The cylinder started its move. Then moved the lever on the right to apply pressure. I checked the feeder, and the exit. Nicely box-to-be cardboard was coming out. I listened to this amazing industrial sound. I woke up for good.

Brain is a strange instrument after all. That was my job for ten years. Apart from this Heidelberg, I was also working on a Swiss Bobst from 1987 and an East German Kama Polygraph from 1976, without spare parts, which meant we had to improvise to keep it in working condition, and some other machines doing other jobs. I know every single detail, button, lever of these machines. I've been under, on the side and on top of these machines. I could realise there was problem only by the sound they made. I was their master. I still believe this was the most artistic thing, I've done in my life. I would have been a good mechanic. I could have studied it when I had the opportunity, but I refused, despite my father's pressure to go to the Technical University of Crete and do it.

Anyway, I'm doing something else now, which I enjoy and I'm good at and still feel the same pressure every working day. But I do miss the sound of noise.