Washer

(There is a funny story about the prototype for this machine. Before the R&D engineers thought to wrap it in hyper-core, they used to run it all day for testing. Then they'd leave the lab to go home at night and the entire parking lot would be full of stray dogs!) You won't hear a thing now, and neither will Rover.

But, we went one step further with our ecological commitment. We at SoftWash care, as you do, about the environmental legacy we leave to our children. Therefore, every machine that rolls off our assembly line is made of 90% recycled materials. As a matter of fact, we'll take your old washer as a trade in. We'll strip it down and put its raw materials back into commission as a brand new SoftWash 2000. New sheet metal, new wiring, new rubber seals--nothing is wasted. Not even the Native American Indians utilized a buffalo as efficiently as we'll use your old machine.

So, what color will you take? What day would you like it delivered? Will that be cash or charge? You won't be disappointed.

Eddie called himself Eddie because he couldn't think of anything better to call himself. Existence was confusing for Eddie. He could fill himself with water whenever he was awake, and he could smell thousands of smells all at once. He could perform incredible feats of cleaning. Just by screaming at a piece of sand lodged in a Hawaiian shirt, he could make it jump from its spot into the water which swirled in Eddie's gut. Then he would flick the granule with micro-blasts of water. He could hold it suspended in mid-stream while he made the shirt jump and swirl around it in some ritualistic dance. He could perform this and other amazing acts simultaneously on thousands of pieces of dirt, sand and dust amidst dozens of shirts, towels, pants, socks or underwear. This was what Eddie lived for. It was all he knew. It was an existence both confusing and unbearable. The only relief came in the forgetful oblivion of sleep, after the washing was done. Sleep was all Eddie wished for.

Unfortunately, the only thing Eddie had no control over was his ability to sleep or wake. He would awaken arbitrarily at someone or something's command with a load of soiled clothing in his belly. Then he knew it was time to begin the washing. Time for the dance to begin. The sooner he blasted all the dirt from the clothes, the sooner he could return to oblivious sleep. The blessed sleep unfettered by dreams. Eddie knew that to think and reason was requisite, but if his sleep was cluttered by unfocused dreams, that would be pure hell. Nirvana would be to sleep forever without the ponderous burden of trying to understand his existence while washing clothes was the single desire which raced through Eddie's wiring and channeled constantly through his micro-processor. It was a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.

But, just when Eddie had finished washing and shuffled off his mortal coil, he would be awakened once again to start a new load of laundry. Only for the briefest moment as his consciousness receded onto his memory disk did he know that he was at rest, at peace. Those pico-seconds when he could sense the onset of oblivion were bliss, pure washing machine Nirvana.

Eddie had no idea what length of time elapsed between washings. Perhaps it was a week or maybe only a few minutes, time enough for someone to throw the current batch into the dryer and heave a fresh batch into his gaping maw.

A thousand mornings of awakening and a thousand passings-into-night tread by through Eddie's existence.