Frank Miller ate toast for breakfast. Two slices. White bread. He spread the margarine on evenly, left to right, the way he had been doing for twelve years. The TV was on in the corner, muted, the news anchor's mouth moving silently behind a wall of weather maps and stock tickers.

He drank his coffee from the chipped mug, the one with the handle that was slightly loose. He did not replace it because it still held coffee. That was the point of a mug.

At seven fifteen, he pulled on his coat and walked to the bus stop. The street was empty except for a dog being walked by a man who did not look at the dog. The sky was the color of a TV with no signal.

The factory was ten minutes from his apartment. Ten minutes walking. Ten minutes riding if the bus was on time. The bus was not on time. It was always not on time.

He clocked in at seven fifty-eight. The time clock made a sound like a gun when you punched your card, and the sound was the same every day, and it meant the same thing every day: you were here now, and you belonged to the building until you were not.

His station was different today.

He had worked at Station 14 for three years. Station 14 was where he knew where the parts came from and where they went. Today, a note had been taped to the edge of the workbench. It said: Station 7. Foreman's orders.

Frank looked at Station 7. It was across the aisle, next to a machine that had been off since he started. The conveyor belt was clean. The tool rack was full. Everything looked new. Unused.

He walked over and sat down.

The part was a metal bracket. Small. About the size of his hand. It came out of a hopper on the left, and he was supposed to inspect it, flip it over, and put it in a bin on the right. That was it. Inspect. Flip. Bin.

He inspected the first part. It looked fine. He flipped it. It looked fine on the other side too. He put it in the bin.

The second part looked fine. He flipped it. Fine. Bin.

The third part had a scratch on it. Not a deep scratch. A surface mark. He held it up to the fluorescent light and turned it over and decided it was acceptable. He flipped it. Bin.

By the tenth part, he had stopped looking at them. His hands moved on their own. Inspect. Flip. Bin. Inspect. Flip. Bin. The rhythm was soothing in the way that repetitive motion is soothing. It fills the hours. It fills the mind. It fills the space between waking and sleeping with something that requires no thought.

At lunch, he sat in the breakroom and ate a sandwich his wife had made. Turkey and cheese on wheat. He did not like wheat. He ate it anyway.

Two men from his section sat at the table across from him. One was named Ray. The other was named Don. Neither of them spoke. They ate their food and watched the TV mounted in the corner.

The news was on. Something about a region Frank did not know the name of. Something about equipment. Something about strikes. The volume was low. Frank almost did not hear it.

He heard the word drone, though. It floated across the breakroom like a piece of paper caught in a draft, and it landed on his desk and stayed there.

He looked at the TV. The anchor was saying something about precision guidance systems. Something about accountability. Something about the people who built the things and the people who used them and the distance between the two.

Frank looked back at his sandwich. He took a bite. It tasted like wheat and turkey and nothing else.

After lunch, he went back to Station 7. Inspect. Flip. Bin. Inspect. Flip. Bin.

At four thirty, the whistle blew. Frank punched out. He walked to the bus stop. The bus was late. He stood there and watched the street, the same street he had watched every morning for twelve years, and he thought about the metal bracket.

He had no idea what it was for. He had never asked. He had never needed to know. The part came, he inspected it, it went. That was the job.

But now he knew the word. Drone. And he knew that the thing he was building a piece of was something that flew. And he knew, with a certainty that arrived quietly and without fanfare, that the thing it flew toward was a person.

The bus arrived. He got on. He paid his fare. He sat by the window and watched the factories pass by, one after another, the same factories he had seen every day for twelve years, and for the first time he noticed that they were all the same shape. Rectangular. Gray. With rows of windows that went on forever.

His apartment was on the second floor of a building that had been yellow once and was now the color of a TV with no signal. He unlocked the door, took off his coat, and put the kettle on.

His wife was not home yet. She worked at the hospital, night shift. She would be home at seven. She would make dinner. They would eat. They would watch the news. They would go to bed.

He sat at the kitchen table and opened a beer. He drank it slowly. The TV was on in the living room, and the news was still playing, and now he could hear the words clearly.

Drone strike. Precision guidance. Collateral damage.

He turned the volume up.

A reporter was standing in front of a building that had been a building and was now a pile of concrete and rebar and things that might have been people. The reporter was saying that the strike had been carried out by a unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a precision guidance system developed by a American defense contractor.

Frank looked at his beer. He looked at the TV. He looked at the empty chair across from him where his wife would sit in an hour and eat dinner and not ask him how his day had been because she already knew.

He turned the TV off.

The silence was loud.

At seven, his wife came home. She made spaghetti. They ate it at the kitchen table. She talked about a patient who had come in with an injury from a work accident. She talked about the nurse who was quitting. She talked about the price of milk.

Frank listened. He nodded. He said things like that is too bad and she will be fine and milk is expensive everywhere.

He did not tell her about the metal bracket. He did not tell her about the word drone. He did not tell her about the man in the dark coat who had designed the system and the people who had used it and the person who had been on the other end of it.

He ate his spaghetti. He drank his water. He said good night and went to bed.

He lay in the dark and listened to his wife breathe. He thought about the bracket. Inspect. Flip. Bin. Inspect. Flip. Bin.

In the morning, he would wake up at six forty-five. He would drink coffee from the chipped mug. He would walk to the bus stop. He would clock in. He would sit at a station and inspect a part and flip it over and put it in a bin.

Nothing would be different.

Nothing ever was.

--- OTMES-v2-0D3A7C-078-M2-180-7R5310-9A2F E_total: 7.80 | Dominant: M2_讽刺 | Angle: 180° | Rank: 7 | I: 0.00 M: [6,0,5,1,2,2,2,0,1,1] N: [0.2,0.8] K: [0.3,0.7]