The Machine

I built the Machine. So did my friends. So did my parents, and so did theirs. People I don’t know built the Machine, too. We all helped build the Machine. The Machine helps us. A line stretches a long while. We are all at the Machine, And it will give us our daily order. After waiting a while, I get to the front of the line And I have arrived at the Machine, which my friends, My parents, their parents, people I don’t know, and I built. I click a button and out comes a receipt, reading “Do [X] today to earn [Y]. Have a good one!” I am unsurprised. I take out the receipt I received yesterday, reading “Do [X] today to earn [Y]. Have a good one!” I go back home. When I arrive home, I look up. There is a corkboard on the wall lined with receipts, all reading the same thing. “Do [X] today to earn [Y]. Have a good one!” I wonder why the machine says that. Nobody programmed the machine to do it. There is frequent maintenance done on the machine. We don’t know who does the maintenance, but we assume that it is someone qualified to do it. My neighbor once tried to get a job at maintenance, but He was rejected immediately. I want to wonder who works there, But I don’t have time. It must be someone qualified, I thought. A sentinel flies past my window. It retraces its flight and arrives back in front of me. My face is blank. I already did [X] today. I assume it is here to deliver [Y]. The sentinel taps my window and I open it. A dark, gray claw hands me a receipt. My face is still blank. I say nothing. The sentinel does not blink, and neither do I. The sentinel flies away to give a receipt to my neighbor. I look down. Holding the receipt up to a looking distance, and I open it. “Your receipt for [Y]. Please enter it into the Machine tomorrow to receive it.” I looked behind me. The corkboard. It all says the same thing. My face was blank. And my mouth was a straight line. Since then, it had slowly curved downward. The machine told me to have a good one. But today, I didn’t. Did I ever?