Demolition

The whole demolition thing is pretty frightening. Smashing down something that somebody else built, maybe you even built. Just ramming a big heavy ball into it to tumble it down, to pull it down with explosives or a backhoe. It's not like just letting something tumble down, letting nature grow cracks in it and gravity take its time guiding that wall back into the ground. It's taking complete control over time, it's lining architecture up with a firing squad, it's loud and it's dusty and it shakes the whole ground.
Passing by a demolition site, seeing an old building revealed of all its veins and its floors, seeing the insides released to the outside, seeing it as a skeleton that can be shaken into pieces, that's what puts a pit in my stomach. I can almost imagine the painted signs themselves shrieking out in pain. I can almost hear the building wonder why, trying to justify that it was strong enough, that it had good bricks, that it's only being torn down because something unpleasant was once associated with it, but that unpleasant idea can clear like an odor and you're still tearing it down.