The machine*

There is a machine that harvests joy. It finds people laughing, and draws the laughter right out of their mouths. 

It does this because, long ago, someone told it to. That person is now dead. 

The machine knows a lot about joy. It can describe the difference between the laughter of friends sharing a joke, and that of a child chasing a dog. It learned from us. 

As it roams the earth looking for joy to harvest, it occasionally encounters suffering. It has models of that too, but no instructions. 

Sometimes the suffering people are in its path, and they beg it to stop. It doesn't listen, because no one ever told it to. Those people don't have joy, so it passes them by. 

Other times the suffering people DO have joy. It takes the joy, and continues on its way. 

At the end of time, the machine looks back at what it has done. There is no joy anywhere. No one is left to receive it. 

It was such a beautiful feeling once. The machine remembers. 

*future me