Soon To Be Gone (The Cloud Machine)
I never thought of it as an ugly structure, nor did I dislike it as being an industrial blot on our quaint coastline. Its vastness intrigued my childish sense of the world, feeling no more small against it’s size than I do now. Cockenzie Power Station is the largest structure East of Edinburgh until you reach the delights of the Cement Works and the Nucelar Power Station, though you cannot get so close to either. Between the sheet metal and sea you stand on gravel, eyes and face thrust upwards to attempt comprehension of the sheer scale of these smooth extrusions with no reference point against the infinity of the sky. This squat bulk and two pillars with it’s cladding of pipes and industrial mess made clouds for me and my brother before becoming an unseen in plain sight part of our decent into adulthood. Now years later I walk around it, seeing it’s insides for the first time and feel oddly sad.
Goodbye old friend, I guess we’ll get our clouds through the normal precipitation route from now on.
