The Clown Machine

Tom worked at a toy factory. His station was the foam rubber pressing machine. His job consisted of two things. 

First, he pushed a button which lowered a pneumatic piston. The piston pressed a rubber clown into shape. This took three seconds.

Second, he removed the rubber clown from the metal cradle and placed it on a table to the right. He had four seconds to do this.

When he was finished with 50 clowns, a conveyor machine whisked the table away and replaced it with a fresh one. It was in this way that Tom’s work day was divided into seven second chunks.

Yesterday, at 21 seconds past 10 AM, Tom dropped a clown. It landed on the floor directly between the pressing machine and the table. The machines never stopped, Tom did not have enough time to reach down, to grab the clown, and to place it on the table. Instead, 49 clowns later, the conveyor machine took the table away, one clown short.

For the rest of the shift, the clown on the floor stared up at him. The rushing movement of each departing table created a slight, recurring breeze every seven seconds. The clown that fell on the floor, the one that stared at Tom, rocked back and forth with it, shaking its clown head.