FICTION: The nth Industrial Revolution

Warmed by a cloth, the cold table held a motionless body. Her eyes were closed, and the flesh of her back exposed to the amber dim. A knock at the door, not of horror, but enquiry entered her ears. "Yes, I'm ready," she spoke in an exhausted, weak voice.

The door didn't open, Instead,the light moved across her back.

Above her, the ceiling opened. From within the dark cavity,, descended various vibrating, rotating probes. The automation had come for the massage industry. A warm fluid lubricant that smelled of coconut was applied by an aerosol, and the experience began.

She relaxed at the warm, but tensed at the lack of humanity.

She missed the conversation that often accompanied this cycle of stimulus and recovery. She missed the human contact of flesh upon flesh.

She hated the fiction of it all, but it was a mandate from her employer. In order for peak performance to be reached, the muscles must be stimulated twice a week - and they weren't going to shell out of the boutique human experience she had indulged in for countless years. At least she was getting paid for the recovery session after long shifts installing servers into racks.

Endless servers, who only sang the song of airflow, fans, and of pulsing waterpumps to cool the hungry electrons flying around in circuits. In the room, calming music in major keys and an indistinct aroma of incense and candle filled the space.

So did the whirring of the machines. She sighed.

This mechanical masseuse had no hands. It had no delicate touch to respond to the flinches of pain. It was accurate, optimal, and mechanical - hitting all the right pressure points, stimulating all the right fibres - but it did not react in the same way as a human hand might. It did not speak of the traumas that caused the tension, or suggest at strategies to not develop the same untidy discomfort.

A loud beeping emerged from the corridor, jolting her the table. The machine ceased at once. It sounded like a smoke alarm. There were no authentic candles in this place - so how could it be fire? She took the towel from the bench, wrapping herself in it, and grabbing her clothes as the machine started to retract into the ceiling.

"EXPERIENCE OVER" A mechanical voice blared, rattling a poorly installed speaker grill.

The alarm blared more urgently.

She entered the corridor to see a dozen more confused faces, in various states of undress.

"Fire!" she heard one of them claim, and they all moved toward the emergency exit.

Behind them, the flames of the automated massage factory grew larger. The place was burning, but it didn't smell acrid - instead, it smelled of gentle coconut oil, warmed slightly, as the flawless machines and their various attachments melted.

She smiled. Perhaps next time, she'd get the real human touch. In the distance, she saw a car rumbling away - as a firetruck approached in the opposite direction, rushing toward the scene.

Author's Notes:

Masseur was the prompt for this particular piece of writing - it was put together over the course of the approximately fifteen minutes. One of the other members of the group wrote a poem that had a line that transitioned "from sedentary to sedition" and I thought, I must turn that into a story, too. This, perhaps, is that story.