"How does it work?"
"Ah. Very simply, you see," said the tall man. He indicated a small orange box resting on a pedestal in the center of the room. From the side of the box protruded a tiny silver crank. Holding the crank delicately between his thumb and forefinger, the tall man turned it, and throughout the cluttered room flywheels spun, belts rattled, and gears turned. When the tall man stopped turning the crank, all motion ceased. "Like so," the tall man said, smiling. "That's all there is to it, you see."
"But what does it do?"
"It makes dreams," replied the tall man.
"Whose dreams?"
"Yours, of course."
"Oh." The applicant gingerly touched the crank with the tip of his finger.
"Try it," urged the tall man.
Gently, the applicant gave the crank a little turn. Slender pistons clicked up and down, and a thread of steam hissed from a criss-cross of pipes along the wall. A wide, metal hopper at one end of the room emitted a sudden clatter, and he stepped abruptly away from the pedestal.
"There's one already," crowed the tall man, reaching into the hopper. He drew forth a small, wooden dog, painted bright red — a child's toy. Its head bobbled loosely on a neck made of spring. The tall man fished a paper tag from his pocket and tied it to one of the dog's ears with a bit of string. The tag read, "99¢".
The applicant was sure had seen a toy like that before, but he couldn't remember where.
"Easy as peaches," said the tall man, slipping the toy into his jacket. He rubbed his hands together with a papery sound. "Well then, I'll let you get on with it. If there's anything —"
"How long?"
"I'm sorry?"
"How long do I have to . . . " he waved vaguely at the pedestal, and the forest of gears all around.
The tall man's smile slipped just a bit. "Well, you know . . . forever, I suppose. And you must be sure to turn it constantly. There's, ah, there's a link, you see. For efficiency purposes, we've run a secondary link up to the, ah, the celestial spheres, as it were. So, you know, you're also making the stars move." The tall man pointed up to the nonexistent ceiling; the room was open to the night sky. "You wouldn't want to slack off on that, obviously."
"I guess I wouldn't."
The smile came back. "Quite right," the tall man said, and quickly left through the room's only door.
The applicant set to work immediately. Periodically the tall man returned to collect the dreams that fell into the machine's hopper. After several visits he asked the tall man for a stool to sit on; several visits later he requested a blanket as well, to wrap around his shoulders on the days when the room was cold. These the tall man provided gladly, and otherwise, the applicant wanted for nothing. He never asked where his dreams went after the tall man took them away. It really was, he reflected, just as the tall man said: easy as peaches.
Some nights he looked up through the open ceiling at the sky, but the stars always appeared motionless to him. Perhaps, he thought to himself, they simply move too slowly for the eye to see.
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