{"sf1_id":148844,"sf2_id":"yndMrJV1","title":"The Machine","author":"JJ Richards","words":319,"posted_at":"2010-05-24T19:40:00.000Z","tags":["Dark","Poem","Sci-Fi"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/148844-the-machine","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/yndMrJV1","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/22/61/2261421f-5724-4608-a885-8295b230d5ac","description":"","content":"It all starts with a flip of a switch,  \nThe machine chokes to life, starts to move a bit.  \nThe hammers swing, they pound iron to iron,  \nThey never sleep,  \nThey never grow tired.  \nThe heat rises from the furnace,  \nIt burns ten thousand degrees hot.  \nIt blasts the metal,  \nIt too never stops.  \nGear teeth grind,  \nPistons pump,  \nThe oil and grease drip,  \nThe hot iron dumps.  \nThe mold presses down,  \nIt forms small metal chunks,  \nWhich the hammers pound flat,  \nThey keep swinging,  \nDown,  \nDown,  \nDown.\n\nThe machine is a fire-bred monster, which roars as it works,  \nNever sleeps,  \nNever stops,  \nNever thinks twice about slowing down,  \nWatch as it works.\n\nThe metal moves down on a wide leather belt,  \nTill from the heart of the machine, a metal tentacle picks it up.  \nIt moves to a press, where it's folded into a cube,  \nThen, the tentacle picks it up.  \nAlong with a few other strange shapes, it moves up to the top,  \nIt drops them on the belt, which always moves,  \nNever stops.\n\nThe machine is a fire-bred monster, which roars as it works,  \nNever sleeps,  \nNever stops,  \nNever thinks twice about slowing down,  \nWatch as it works.\n\nOne by one, other tentacles raise,  \nAnd drop their own strange parts, pulled from the haze,  \nOf smoke and exhaust,  \nDust and dirt,  \nWhich shrouds this monsters incredible girth.  \nThe belts with the shapes the molding press made,  \nSlide down a shoot back into the haze.  \nWhere little tentacles work together, making ten little parts,  \nInto one.  \nThe machine is done.  \nIt spits out the part,  \nGrimy hands reach down and grasp the engineered art.  \nThe man, the inventor, walks across the room,  \nTo where another machine is being birthed in the gloom.\n\nThe machine is a fire-bred monster, which roars as it works,  \nNever sleeps,  \nNever stops,  \nNever thinks twice about slowing down,  \nWatch as it works.\n\n  \n  \n\n"}