#billofquantities

Epigraph: In the hush maze of empty glass offices, numbers begin to breathe. Beneath Mr. Vulture’s watch and the scent of boiling sugar, Aetheria glows—a silent auditor of cost and conscience, a soul measures the weight of its own making, where even jam becomes a mirror of creation.

BOOK SYNOPSIS: Aetheria, in the zodiacal forest—where birds sing and leaves flutter like wings bathing in light. The symphony of the forest comes to mind. This is the cosmos’ whisper through our creatures, and in these pages, she leads me. These chapters unfold as a clarifying companion to my earlier book, The Code: Horizon of Infinity—a philosophical memoir exploring how the universe sculpted our minds. Through Aetheria, the lens of consciousness who begins to reveal herself, her presence lives in the rhythm. She seeks form—moving toward the name she will one day claim: Sunshine.

YD6-95(2-Materne): Mr. Vulture, the People, and the Jam Factory — in Aetheria’s glow

I pass Mr. CEO, a vulture in crouch at his desk, an open scrapbook’s curled edges off-hand—no doubt filled with calculations, time-and-motion studies of labor and equipment accumulated over time, when handed the Bill of Quantities. Yet, he watches from the corner of my eyes behind the somber glazed shield, before I step the walk-down to the swing of the door opening to the street. I reflect over the lee buffer—that should I get lost along the way—my pace crunches the apron grit amid the far distant doughnut hum breaking the white noise. My silver-gray Audi, its engine not yet chilled from landing into the rising sun, waits before the stretched brick facade to care for our ride. I slip into the seat, pick the key, tweak the ignition, shift into reverse, the heel of my hand spinning the wheel, shift into forward gear, driving away from the office block.

Weaving out from among the industrial sheds, looming behind street-front offices on the exit way, I brush past the portal, my glass bubble coasting by silhouettes of Caterpillar plants on show before a bright yellow-brick factory front—prophetic of an unblemished ream of papers. Yet, swells an upcoming weight: the Bill of Quantities, not so innocent, sits in the passenger seat, fluttering at my unconsciousness. Rental and ownership expenses of an entire earthmoving fleet form a financial omen—realized before a single number has been entered—to shatter the illusion of the blank page.

I cruise at leisure. Charleroi’s outskirts thin into the country. The charcoal dust field centered the factory-state, surrendered to the shaggy expanses where surgical rusty iron and or steel skeletons stand brutal and exposed, a planned intrusion now left open and vulnerable. Italian mine workers' dream cabins, squeezed into hedgerows of fenestrated brick facades, as the road serpentines through straggling hamlets scattered across the shallow valley. I cross the river—another segment of the snake's water body I’d flirted with after branching off from Paris in the morning for work. 

Through rudimentary, neglected fields, I creep up to a road fork. I borrow left, opening onto a deserted, beaten factory apron. I scout ahead as I coast, engine idling, tracking the turning-circle ruts of twenty-wheeler agricultural trucks. I head diagonally toward a gleam of life beside the looming shed gable—dwarf a row of a few cars before a flat-roofed brick stretch of office windows—and pull to a halt. I linger at the steering wheel, before the mirrored Audi; my eyes fix on a door calling me not to delay myself further. I tweak the ignition key—the engine sighs to a hush.

I step out of the car - smack - heading toward the office door alongside the sight-filled, beige-clad prow of the shed. I crank the lever and push the door inside to find a cluster of wax men posturing; a half-dozen pairs of eyeballs roam away from their nearest bystanders—but me, I’m seeking to escape the cul-de-sac of the reception office. Yet, caught in the corners of their eyes—an estranged gaze passing between men of competing companies. The group ignores my entry, a tree’s fall of nerves steadying my body into pause.

Swallowed, I became integral to the group. But we’re left waiting—the void of an attendant behind a full-length counter along the flank wall, a doorway to a rear office. It fits a dispatch-reception vacancy until an emerging voice says. “[Je vais vous faire visiter l'usine]—I’ll be showing you around the factory.” A core figure livens; the Tarzan in me revolts. I take a deep breath before the man, raising a wrist, drops a glance at his watch. ‘We waited long enough!’ the waxed group melts to life, jiggling into motion, and as the guide steps from their midst, I trail my freedom to the trickling outdoors. 

The guide passes a dark alley between structures. He follows the shed’s steel cladding, pausing under the gable apex. He unlocks and pulls the door, vanishing inside. I straggle behind the last of the contractors or representatives - clang, a click - the door locks behind me. The guide heads on down the middle aisle, the group shrinking to gnomes amid a giant’s kitchen—a passage lined with glistening rows of pressure cookers. The slow motion suppressing me broods in my mind, to wonder: ‘What am I doing here?’ It arouses a silent urge to escape—until the guide lags back, passing a dwarf in a laboratory gown, standing high on a platform ladder, before a plume of steam rising as he reads a gauge and notes it on a clipboard.

The guide plods to a halt. The group drifts onward until he’s standing abreast of me. 

My nagging mind spills into my voice. “[Quelle est la difference…]—What’s the difference… Your Materne labeled jam, and the same triangular labeled White Product at a discounted price in the GB supermarket?”

Keen and bubbly, the guide—by a task out of routine—confirms my long-held suspicion, saying. “Our brand product has twenty-five percent sugar content. We add fifty percent sugar.” 

As the crowd gathers, lost among themselves, the guide heads away to the front, pursuing the tour underneath a suspended ceiling of fluorescent light tubes, but my eyes didn’t hold still—through the technical looming shadows, among the giant roof trusses, halfway across the shed he veers right from the ridgeline, and sight falls on a dwarfing-flank door. Sizing up in our approach, my mind isn’t yet at the task that lies ahead—the Bill of Quantities I left lying on my Audi’s passenger seat. 

He pauses before the tightening little crowd, unlatching the door that vanishes from his grip into a gaping glow. After the jostle, at my turn, where the group’s silhouette disappeared, I step outside, sinking into a soaking grazing field that expands afield. I’m at a loss of perception—implanting a factory shed without blueprints. The group loops back; the guide returns, lost amid hasty figures rushing and scattering from the exit door. When I egress onto trucks’ tire-beaten apron, figures disappear into parked cars. One car reverses, circling wide; behind the leaving traffic, I step into my Audi, searching my mind for Hydra heads to join as a team to my mind, trailing the gateway parade to the street.

Then my mind falls back, tracking my way through earlier milestones after the first corner, the rusty chemical plant, crossing the river, to the Caterpillar's landmarks, until, with the heel of my hand spinning the steering wheel, halt before the office’s brick wall, my mind conceding to think out proceeding costing out the Bill of Quantities. I pace behind - smack, slam - the closing doors, to the walk-up and through the glazed corridor. I turn back through the anteroom to my chair, and lay the intimidating Bill of Quantities before me. I flip the cover page of the spine-bonded ream of papers, addressing the tender opening day at the top of the riffling pages. I slip my head between my cupped hands—everything tells me, ‘mission impossible’—to which I reply, ‘I can only do my best costing this out.’

Every workday, the doorway gapes in gloom while Helios’ shafts shift across the courtyard; until a shadow catches the light and waxes into a fluttering figure calling me to glance. My fingers pause, pianoing the keyboard of my Toshiba laptop, my mind absorbed in an item of the open Bill of Quantities. My eyes drift from the screen, landing on a discreet regard—a Virgo’s greeting in stride. 

He’s casual in regard, routinely arriving in the early evening. Halting at the back-to-back island of blueprint tables, spruce, placing folder and keys on the near corner, sidesteps, and lowers into the chair before me, obliterating the day’s weary backrest.  

Sitting, he pulls the folder before himself and flips the cover. The short, pepper-bearded man—Eli Godard—writes out his construction site daily report, his casual words tumbling across the seam of our tables. Without saying much, he exposes the details of a construction manager’s problem-solving—grounded in practical Earth signs. His managing and running of sites echo an omen as I read the clauses and cost center items in my ream of pages: ‘Preliminaries and General Costs.’

By five o’clock—Maiden, he reflects dedication to order and service. Eli Godard rises from his chair, drawing self-worth from a brief stance as he gathers his file and keys. The Walloon's figure turns away. “[Bonsoir]--Good evening.” He retreats into the anterior office, reappears behind the glazed partition, then disappears over my shoulder—leaving me to lock eyeballs with the shadow of Mr. Vulture’s living bust, visible through the mazed glaze across the corridor.

A while after Eli Godard left, marking his authority to do so, I feel weary and reasonably spent. Then, I break away, rising from my chair, with a slap of my Toshiba laptop, and sweep aside to dig into Rico’s executive briefcase. In strides, I chase after time itself; partitions run, I pass the corridor glazing, shielding Mr. CEO lurking at his desk—a time-and-attendance glimpse of me. Consumed, I rush the walk-down to the entrance, storming the route home to Victoria—to reclaim time stolen by work. 

I pull the door close behind me. I fetch my Audi gleaming under an evening twilight, climb behind the steering wheel, tweak the ignition, shift into reverse, and coast into the street. I drive away; fetching the thoroughfare’s trickling traffic, diverting onto the highway ‘Brussels,’ at the outskirts shunting to the off-ramp. Weaving through the community settling in for the night up the valley of Forest. Track my landmarks to newfound shortcuts, before pulling up on Dr. Decroly Avenue for the night. 

The morning sun over my left shoulder, calls me to the roadway before traffic. Yet restlessness builds up in my driving after leaving the Paris highway—piercing my preoccupied mind. Above the radio, cosmic music rhymes:

“Torn between two lovers, 

feeling like a fool, 

Loving both of you is breaking all the rules, 

You mustn't think you failed me just because there's someone else, 

You were the first real love I ever had, 

And all the things I ever said, 

I swear they still are true, 

For no one else can have the part of me I gave to you, 

Torn between two lovers, 

feeling like a fool, 

Loving both of you is breaking all the rules” 

My route coils underneath the cast-iron eared-bridge, over the water, the yellow sun flaring in front of me, along the thoroughfare punctuated by signs, ‘Charleroi.’ I stay on the lookout for the ambush to weave into Jumet, and pull up to a halt before the burgundy brick wall beside the double wooden door. I step out, and enter, before me the walk-up through the corridor partitions run evanescent in the Erebus’ empty glazed depths. 

Mr. Vulture’s eyes on me; I grow to despise his spying. 

I sway my shoulders from the corridor around the doorway jamb, cutting the U-passage short at the anteroom corner—gliding into a mesmerizing courtyard—Aetheria’s gift, self-telling: ‘Beautiful, isn’t it—for the coming day.’ 

My eyes scoot to the Bill of Quantities, seeking where I left off last night. 

Landing a counter-swing of hips from the table’s poking corner, I bend to place my suitcase on the floor; in the same sweep, I lift my laptop into daylight’s flush across the island of tables—raise the lid, press the power button—command lines flicker neurons resetting, BIOS counts running their course, the screen’s faint C:> blinking. My mind drives into the next item to cost as I settle into my chair. 

More direct, the costing falls to me—I riffle fingers through the Yellow Pages for site office and furniture, meandering among listings for workmen’s sheds, toilets, purchase prices, and the hiring rates. 

I dial an earthmoving contractor, and ask the man on the other end: “… [Qu'est-ce que le schiste ?]—What is schist?” As I hang up, my mind drifts to the scene of stepping out the Materne factory’s side door—its yielding grazing field prone to bogging wheels down—

—costing out before leaving for the night. 

In the vertigo of calculus and price out, I could carry on for another Item, yet in the sillage of Mr. Vulture over my scrapbook—I conclude—checking on my progress. ‘Just tell me… instead of sneaking?’     

In the wake of the item description, I see a holographic awakening—an operating Caterpillar scarifying a track through the grazing field. On the virgin clayish soil, drivers back up dumper trucks, tipping heaps of schist; the Caterpillar’s walking wheels ride the waves, its scraping blade grading down with every passage to leave behind a whitish evanescent access road running the length of the construction site. I flag the item for written confirmation on my laptop, along with an all-inclusive unit price. 

Eli Godard enters, sits across the table, and begins writing his site report. In exchange of casual words, he adds, Brings up, in other words. “[Je reviens justement de rencontrer l'architecte du chantier]—I’ve just returned from meeting with the architect of the construction site.” Systematic allusion—he keeps writing, then adds, outspoken: “[On a sympathisé—On est devenus amis]—We sympathized—We became friends…” insinuating over the evolution of the construction work. But he shared a detail that stamped with an emphatic tone, a Virgo trait embellished by high society: “[… Il conduit une Porsche… ]—… He drives a Porsche… “

Eli Godard packs his files, his keys, and leaves, in the aftermath, at moments my mind collapses from calculus, dropping a nurturing thought: ‘Is name-dropping characteristic of a Virgo?’

My biological clock says I’ve exceeded normal overtime hours. I rise and walk through the doorway, past Mr. CEO’s shadowed, perched glance. I carry the irony of the secretary’s bust—a shadow in the maze of reflective, empty offices—in my peripheral vision above my laptop screen. With Eli Godard’s flight through the corridor, she too has vanished for the night. Her echo, an illusion of overhead cost, measured and fetched only at the end of the tender—around the poker table, to beat competitors or lose the bid.  

I fetch my lonely Audi and hit the streets—the engine pistons purring. Feathering the throttle, the thoroughfare morphs as traffic shunts toward off-ramps punctuating the stretch toward distant villages, the asphalt lagging beneath its stippled white lane line at the 120 km/hr notch on the dial. My mind sails in flight, with the elasticity of shifting the speed threshold by a mere suggestion: ‘That’s cheating… but not really—only a ten-kilometer snap back to the limit.’ I cruise—neither anchored at work nor yet at home.

Epigraph, reader Tease: You are welcome to read all the chapters and explore more at my website: How the Universe Sculptured Our Mind. I spend an absurd amount of time chasing expression—perhaps to shame. But the challenge is mine, updates may occur without notice, shaping the timeline, perceptions. The gift is yours: thoughts, echoes, reflections. I take them with gratitude. And you—who are you, reading these lines, stepping into my genre, my style?

Sydney Estimator is a team of experts in construction estimation and project management who serve Sydney and NSW. We provide cost effective Construction Estimating Services for the Building and Construction Industry.

Bill of quantities