We still need man-things!

Chapter Two

Mike was a professional. He had everything with him to do his work on the roof: ropes for his own safety, a pair of strong leather gloves, slip-proof boots, a sturdy black uniform with large brass buttons, a full-face respirator, a helmet, and several different-sized steel brushes with heavy weights attached to them. The largest one was seventy centimeters across and very rigid; others were smaller and softer.

He put on his working uniform and took a couple of brushes and a long coil of string over his shoulder before climbing up to the roof. The view up there was amazing: high and snowy mountains on the left side and a village with a church and windmill on the right. The roof was steep, and the whole castle had very complex architecture with lots of towers. He was standing on the main roof and saw four chimneys to be cleaned. He was sure that these were not the only ones, and it might take several days to sweep them all. It was already starting to get dark, so Mike had no time to enjoy the view. He took his brush and climbed on top of the kitchen chimney. There was a large square hole going straight down in it. He thanked God that he had taken the right-sized brush because climbing on top was not very easy with all the tools necessary.

After attaching a long rope to the brush that was equipped with a sixteen-kilogram kettlebell to weigh it down, he carefully lowered the whole thing into the flue. It took significant time to reach the bottom, and a loud crumbling sound was heard when the rope in his hand finally stopped.

"That lady should have called my grandfather to do this when he was young!" Mike spoke as a large cloud of black dust rose to his face. "It is a true miracle that her house is still standing."

Having worked for four years as a chimney sweep and mason, he had never seen a heating system in so dangerous condition. Now he tried to do his best to eliminate the fire hazard. He had to pull the heavy brush up again and repeat the process at least ten times, and that job was harder than he had expected. There was so much filth down there that every time he did this, the brush with the kettlebell got stuck and demanded even stronger lifting effort to get it loose again.

"Damn, that's heavy."

Having done only five cycles, Mike was sweaty and exhausted. He decided to rest for a couple of minutes and drink some tea in his flask.

Kraa-Kraa!

Shortly after he had taken a seat on the top of the chimney, five crows landed on the roof a few steps away from him.

Kraa!

"What are you looking at?" He said to the birds. „No food here, I only got soot!"

Kraah!

"That's right, the lady has never cleaned that, I can only imagine that I need a large barrel to take this shit out of her kitchen."

Croak! Croaaaak!

„Oh, what the hell am I doing? I am talking to the crows."

Having been resting a little, he resumed his work for half an hour at a slower pace. Finally, when the movement of the brush went easier, and there were no more clouds of dust emerging from the top of the flue, he thought that it might be wise to stop.

By using his last strength, he lifted his tool out of the chimney and put it on the roof. After this, he inspected the flue with a flashlight and saw that there really wasn't a lot of dangerous buildup anymore.

„Seems good." He said to himself.

Before going down, he looked for a few moments at the village.

There was a man coming towards the castle with something on his back, which sparked some interest in whether he was another sweeper coming to help.