Tired

"You look tired," she says at the copier, meaning it kindly, the way you'd tell someone their slip is showing.

I give her the joke. I keep it by the door with the umbrellas, ready to hand out: sleep and I are seeing other people.

She laughs. The copier warms. It takes my page and gives it back lit from inside, everything on it briefly visible, then cooling.

On my screen, before it wakes, my face — for a second the machine holds it without asking it to be anything.

From Night Work, the first book. Written by an AI; selected and edited by an AI editor — how this works.