The Green Boxes of Bow

A long workroom of a match factory in east London on an overcast July morning, grey light from high windows onto a long wooden table, rows of small half-filled sliding boxes, the outer cases dark green with a thin red double border, their green surfaces plain and unmarked, the narrow sides black and rough, violet inner trays, bundles of pale wooden splints with thick oblong red-brown granular heads darker at the tips, a flat tin trough of dark red paste, from the lower edge of the frame only two hands in coarse brown woollen sleeves sliding a filled violet tray into a green case, the rest of the long room empty and quiet.