When I asked about the black-dried spray pattern on one of the machines in the shop, I was told it was paint. But I’ve watched enough CSI: Wherever to recognize blood splatter when I see it. Oh, and by the way, there’s a table saw next to it, with its jagged circular blade peeking through the surface like a metal shark fin. Honestly, it’s more likely that an actual shark bit someone in the machine shop than it is that the splattered stain on the harvest gold sander isn’t human blood dispersed from the adjacent table saw.

More fingers are lost on table saws than on any other tool, the teacher told us today, at which point I took a step back, to where the sawdust lay a little thinner on the floor. All I could think of was Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out —”.