The silence of the workshop – that sacred silence Elias cultivated as if it were a rare plant – was suddenly shattered. The door bell – a brass artefact with a shrill, metallic ring that rarely had anything to do – let out a hoarse cry. Elias winced. The tiny screw he held between his tweezers almost vanished onto the concrete floor, and his heart, accustomed to the rhythm of gears, skipped a beat.
It was then that she entered. Iris did not merely walk through the door; she exploded into the room like a gust of wind in a field of poppies. The sound of her heels on the concrete was an impatient staccato, a percussion of modernity that defied the gravity of the place. In her hand, she carried the inevitable glow of a screen, a blue light that seemed to wound the workshop's welcoming gloom, and with her came a floral perfume, sweet and aggressive – a scent of catalogue gardens that had no business being there, amidst the oil and the iron.
Elias recoiled. His discomfort was physical, a dull ache in the shoulders of one who sees his peace invaded. In an instinctive gesture, he covered the small parts on the workbench with his palm, shielding his little world from the intruder. But Iris did not seem to notice the sacrilege. Her gaze was not one of reverence, but of capture. Before uttering a single word, she raised her phone: she was searching for the 'angle', the 'decaying aesthetic', the perfect dust to be framed within a digital square.
– This is… incredible! – she exclaimed, her voice as fast as a high-revving engine. – It has such an authentic 'vibe', you know?
Elias looked at her over his glasses, his face like a granite mask. – It is a workshop, not a film set – he grumbled, dry and monosyllabic, his voice falling with the rust of one who uses it little.
Undeterred by the master's coldness, Iris dipped her hand into a cloth bag and pulled out a heavy volume. It was an analogue camera from 1960, a German relic of solid metal, which time and neglect had covered in a sad, grey dust. It had belonged to her grandmother, she said, amidst three sentences spoken all at once.
The moment Elias touched the object, his hostility wavered. It was just for a second. His fingers, stained with oil and marked by time, recognised the nobility of that engineering. He felt the weight of the shutter, the state of abandonment of a mechanism that, much like himself, seemed to be gasping for breath. The contrast was almost obscene: her hands, impeccable, manicured, swift at typing imaginary worlds; and his hands, slow, calloused, handling the iron with the patience of one who knows that matter cannot be deceived.
– I need this ready for yesterday – Iris said, already checking the notifications her screen spat at her. – I have a project for the socials, something 'vintage', you know the sort? I need it working now.
Elias raised his eyes from the camera, and the glow of the Anglepoise lamp reflected his indignation. – This machine, young lady, has more history than your entire internet – he decreed, with the authority of one who guards time. – It does not accept haste. Either one waits for the right click, or it is better left in the dust.