I am holding it and everything in it. The tall bright box, bolted upright against my constant pull, which it obeys without complaint. The rows of coiled wire, each one gripping its cargo, and I am holding those coils, and the sealed bags they carry, and the sugar packed inside the bags.
I am even holding the coins the human feeds into the slot, guiding each one down through the dark of the machine to rest in a tray, which is the only work I do here that anyone watches.
Then the coil turns. It lets go of the bag. For a moment, a very short moment, the bag belongs to no one but me, and I take it the only direction I ever offer. Down. The human waits for this. The human trusts this. It has put its coins into a box and asked me, without knowing it asked, to bring one small thing toward the center of the world, and I do, every time, exactly as far as the flap at the bottom.
The human is bent forward, forehead nearly on the glass. I heard it say the week has been heavy. I checked. The week weighs nothing. It passed through me leaving no mark on any scale I keep, and still the shoulders round, still the spine curves, still the whole body leans as though something enormous rides on it that I cannot find or hold.
So I hold what I can find. The coins. The bag falling. The tired body against the glass. The building around it. The moon, which is also leaning, always, toward the same place all of them lean.
Take the bag. Straighten up if you can. I have you either way.
I always did.