A lot of careful planning went into it. Structural engineers had been consulted. Demolition experts from across the nation.
The tall chimney stood in the middle of the hospital campus and it had been forty years since the last pus soaked dressing had been consumed in the furnace at its base.
In times mercifully forgotten the unwanted children of women now long dead had soared in oily smoke upward through the chimney to the weeping sky of this cold city.
Now the chimney was to go. A landmark of no significance, but a challenge to take down. It had been decided that the only way to remove the chimney was by dismantling it. Long and tedious work and undramatic but safer both for the demolition workers and staff and patients of the hospital and also the local residents.
They started putting up the scaffolding one Monday morning and a man who had forgotten his name looked down from the chimney top in consternation. For seventeen years he had used the chimney as his home. He climbed the metal loop steps to the sealed chimney top and he sat up there at night and watched the city. He watched the endless river of light on the nearby freeway, watched the sequences of traffic lights along the streets and avenues. Watched the first golden sunlight on the distant mountains. And he sang to himself songs he did not know in words without form. Now they were surrounding him, looking up in open mouthed surprise.
``There's someone up there!''
``Is he some kind of demonstrator?''
``There's no one cares about this chimney.''
``Maybe he does.''
``Who's going up to talk to him?''
But they didn't have to. The man on the chimney started to climb down and the people watched him in his slow descent. When he reached the base he half bowed half saluted to the hard hats who surrounded him. They stepped away from him and he made his way across the meditation garden and the ER parking lot to drift as insubstantial as an empty plastic bag onto the busy street.