The Life of a Machine

Yesterday I stood in front of the huge windows of the bakery and watched the lines of loaves shoot out of the oven and onto a conveyor belt. The temperature in the oven must have been perfect because each loaf had the same swathe of brown across its top. The conveyor belt wound around and down toward the floor, where three figures in white hairnets eyed each loaf for imperfections. The yeasty, hot smell of fresh bread wafted out of the top of the building and I felt comforted. This was the first time I had passed this place. In the evening I went by again. The place was lit only by a strip light in the very center of the factory. I would describe the light as looking like steel or maybe tin. The oven near the window had a few flashing lights on it.

I went out of my way today to go back. This time there was no bread and I noticed another conveyor belt, just above my head. With all the loaves I had seen before, I had failed to notice it. There were random bits of bread on it and they weren't moving. Without the fresh perfect loaves shooting out of the oven, all I saw through the vast clean glass was a machine. A machine working poorly. A man in a white hairnet swept flour off the floor below and I waved to him, but he didn't see.