I wish people would listen to me.

That’s not great. How should you start a diary?

I’ll recap lunch, I guess. Today is Tuesday, and on Tuesdays I get my favorite sandwich from the little old ugly deli. This particular deli is almost too far for the trip to fit into my lunch hour, but if I leave my workstation right at noon, I can get into line before it reaches the parking meters. I put in my headphones and listen to an audiobook as I eat my lunch at a specific bench, next to a large concrete fountain. It is shaped like a giant head. Water coming out of the skull. I know, it’s creepy! But it is also nicely shaded at this time of day.

After I finish eating, I can take the subway back to work and buy a candy bar. The colder vending machine is in the scanning department’s break room, on the ground floor—ours is warmer and melts the chocolate. Then I can use the less-smelly restroom by the tall cubicles before logging back in at one o’clock. It’s a tight timeline, but I’ve been doing this for seven months and I’ve never been late.

Today’s schedule was ruined from the start.

First, Anthony from Document Storage intercepted me. It was all my fault, I suppose. I walked too close to his desk. I should’ve taken the path by car-calendar guy’s desk, past the printers, and then used the stairs. I won’t make that mistake again.

“Vera! Hey, Vera! I’m so glad I caught you.”

I smiled and said I was in a hurry, engaging in evasive maneuvers: smile, nod, and shift closer to the door. I worried my smile would waver and it would inspire a comment, some remark he had no business making about my happiness or tiredness or whatever he felt entitled to observing. Thinking back, perhaps an eye roll or a crinkle of my nose would’ve dissuaded him. Probably not. Eventually, the approach of another colleague distracted him and I made my escape.

I had to run to catch the train. Luckily, the sidewalk isn’t too busy by my office, even at lunchtime. The buzz of delivery drones lifting off from the platform mounted on a nearby building signaled my halfway point to the subway entrance. I trotted down the steps, grateful it hadn’t rained today, as I strained to hear the whirr of the train arriving or departing. My phone buzzed payment as I passed the gates to the empty platform.

A soft light emerged from the tunnel but did not approach. The train was stuck in the tunnel, because of course it was.

I paced, as if my movement could influence a 750,000-pound train. If it moved to the platform soon, and each stop between here and the sandwich place went smoothly, I could make it to the counter, collect my order, and reach my bench before anyone else. There was still hope.

Across the platform, a track-clearing bot mirrored my movements. An arm extended and lifted items from the track, then placed them into a large open gutter mounted to the wall. Rats raced along the gutter, searching for anything good. The bot ignored them.

The train remained, and I could see the conductor waving his hands and speaking into a cell phone, all the while glaring at the bot. The gate agent passed through the gate, her thumb through her belt loop and her eyes on the bot, continuing a conversation in her walkie talkie.

“Tell central they set the sensitivity up too damn high. This isn’t the Taj Mahal. Tell it to leave the small stuff so we can get these trains moving, alright?”

After a moment, the bot hesitated, then reluctantly dropped the receipt it had collected. As the bot rolled toward a crevice, it scanned the ground, as if assessing its failure. Then, it tucked inside the crevice and shut down. A rat immediately pulled an ice cream sandwich wrapper from the gutter, then left it on the track. If you didn’t know what to look for, you’d never have known a bot had been there at all.

“Thank you, Freddy!” said the gate agent to the walkie talkie, before she waved at the conductor and returned through the gate to her booth.

A whining cry of electrical motors and wheels on metal, and the train reached the platform. The doors slid open, and I was on my way to lunch.

When I reached my exit, I tried to walk as quickly as I could while still retaining some dignity. The sidewalk here was busier, and besides, I didn’t want to be super sweaty when I got back to work. The sandwich shop had a small line, out the door but not down the sidewalk—not too bad. The owner was working the counter. A rocky start to the lunch hour, but everything was going smoothly now. Carl, who is gruff and middle-aged, doesn’t look like a chef, but each sandwich he makes is perfect. The bread is toasted evenly, with a sweet, buttery crunch on the exterior. The condiments cover the cheese and meat yet do not drip out the sides. He takes great care in what he does, and I need that kind of care, even if I have to pay for it.

My cousin Jennifer’s friend Sarah told me about this place. The two of them used to come here all the time. That was when Sarah still worked for Perilaus Bionics, before her third child, Fiona, was born. Jennifer is still there, moving up the ranks, as Sarah described it. She told me to always ask for Carl, which I have never, ever done. What if he is on break? Or at home sick? It felt rude to tell them how to structure their workflow. I didn’t say any of this to Sarah. She wouldn’t come across that way. She’s charming and warm and funny. She’d get Carl to make her sandwich because he’d want to chat with her. I’m not charming. I’m not even not charming. I unsettle people. They seem to misunderstand me, though I don’t know if that is my fault or theirs.

Anyway, Carl was there when I arrived, and my sandwich would be delicious. I waited in line in a warm glow of success and opened my new book.

I shuffled forward as orders were filled. I would not be reading a silly book today. Instead, I let myself fall into the dreary world of post–World War II America. Literature while standing in line for lunch, the height of adulthood. I wore clean, crisp business-casual clothes, just like the person in front of me and the person behind me. I took in artful descriptions of modern malaise, brooding characters, banal yet chaotic conflicts of domesticity. I kept my peripheral vision on the heels of the woman ahead of me, to stay engaged with the line, while I imagined being elsewhere. Very adult.

My turn arrived and I looked up. Carl was gone. His nephew, a pale, sweaty teenager whose name I refused to learn dragged the notepad over and waited for my order.

No, no, no!

This was all wrong. What should I do? There was nothing to do. The words of Sarah, “ask for Carl,” mocked me. I would never do that. I put on my smile, made eye contact with the boy, and treated each word as an individual: a number four, no onions, no jalapeños, and easy mayo. Despite my deliberate enunciation, I could see on the pad he had written a plus sign, not “no” beside jalapeños. Stop him! I thought. I assembled my social smile and lifted my hand, calling attention, so polite, not too eager, to make the necessary correction, but no. He walked away. Should I shout? I should. I should shout. I should smash my fist into the glass. I should scream at him.

No, I would not. I swallowed my anger until only shame remained. My face burned. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had done everything right. Where was Carl?

I lingered at the counter too long. The eyes of hungry people pressed on my back, each one mad at themselves for being late and ready to redirect that anger at anyone else. The line stretched past the meters now, and beyond—someone was likely outside the florist, listening to the snip, snip, snip of roses cut to size.

There was nothing to do. I stepped aside, to make it clear I was out of line but still belonged, ready for my turn to pay. I didn’t want to pay. I didn’t want this sandwich. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to leave hungry, and punish Carl for employing his stupid nephew. I stood there and waited, like a fool, staring at my phone like it had answers for me.

Carl returned to the counter and took down the next person’s sandwich order on his pocket notepad, each request written in his sharpened pencil with careful attention. Meanwhile, the nephew blankly assembled my monstrosity. Carl looked aside, he looked down at his nephew’s work, the work he should have been doing himself, and he looked at it with disapproval. Rage again. White-hot. That’s right, Carl! That’s my stupid sandwich. But he said nothing. He probably loved him, knew him, and felt a disappointment much greater than what I felt over a single lunchtime. That thought soothed and shamed me.

I tried to return to my book. Reading literature on my break from work, angry about a sandwich. Like a child playing pretend. I closed the file. A sharp, tinkling laugh broke through from the sunny street. The construction worker beside me stretched and popped his back. A person cleaned their glasses with a purpose-made swatch of fabric. They would’ve spoken up. It would’ve been fine. What is wrong with me?

The nephew wrapped my sandwich in butcher paper and thumped it on the counter. “Number 4, extra jalas.” I walked over and tapped out my payment. I even left my standard tip, in case my anger had been visible. There was no need. No one saw me. No one cared. The nephew was gone, scribbling down the next order. I heard the customer loudly correct him: “A number NINE. Not five, NINE.” The nephew shrugged and made the correction.

I retreated to the privacy of my favorite bench. From my purse I retrieved two napkins and a small compost bag I carried with me. I used one napkin to scrape the extra mayonnaise out. On the second napkin, I set each jalapeño piece, one by one, a soggy puzzle of regret. I couldn’t remove them all, of course. I put the sticky, greasy napkins into the small compost bag and set it on the ground. I put the sandwich back together and inspected it. There was too much meat, and still too much mayonnaise. The lettuce was insufficient. The bread, at least, was the same as usual. I’d enjoy the bread. I ate my lunch and watched the busy sidewalk from a safe distance.

The line was long now. A woman in a bright green trench coat adjusted her high-heeled shoe. Her coat looked special and tailored. I wondered if it was her favorite. She fumbled for a tissue, not immediately aware of her large front pockets. No, this garment was unfamiliar to her. She was a coat woman. How many coats does this coat woman own, I wondered. Does she have her own closet of coats? Not a coat closet; that implies a space for the service of guests, right? No, I mean a closet of coats, maybe tucked away in a room the architect had intended for children, which she didn’t have, for reasons she kept to herself. Where were the coats for winter now, neatly packed away with dried lavender and cedar chips, while the spring and summer ones swung clean and ready, waiting for duty on wooden hangers? I sipped some water. Were all her coats bright? I looked at her shoes. They were colorful and also expensive. Yes, I decided. I would like to see this woman’s many coats, the house she kept them in, and the lifestyle that supported such a ridiculous habit.

Behind her, two young men chatted with insecure, masculine confidence. They bored me, even while I despised them. Their hand motions, like their laughs, were not intended to express any particular feeling. They existed for attention, nothing more. One of them told a story in a lying tone while the other watched a sweeper bot.

“Pardon me,” the sleek, oblong sweeper bot’s female voice requested to a woman in a tweed skirt. The woman lifted her foot and the robot extended its arm. From the end of the arm three delicate fingers appeared. It quickly lifted an ice cream wrapper from the concrete and the arm retreated. A small door opened on its torso. The trash disappeared into the cavity and the door snapped shut. “Thank you,” the robot replied. The tweed-skirt woman ignored it.

The bot moved with grace and efficiency, pivoting on hidden wheels to inspect a bit of gum on the sidewalk. After a moment, the arm extended again, only a small distance this time. Instead of fingers, a nozzle emerged. It ejected a small, conical spray of a solution onto the ground. Perhaps liquid nitrogen? The mist coated the pale red smear, then the sprayer retracted. A new arm, with only a grinding tool at the end, appeared. It made very little sound, though what sound it did make displeased an old man in line. He took a moment to scowl at the bot, then returned to rocking on his leather shoes, antagonizing the line to proceed.

In seconds, the sweeper bot had the gum reduced to a fine powder. Another tool, a small vacuum, appeared from a vaguely inappropriate place at the bottom of the robot. Who designed these things? Once the surface was vacuumed, the original arm extended again; it must be the primary arm. It appeared to assess the quality of its work. I wondered how many hours of research had gone into the complexity of this sweeper bot. Teams had designed each component, and a project manager had ensured that each tool worked with the other. And for what goal? To remove sidewalk gum? Yet I sat there transfixed by it. It didn’t look like a device executing a fixed task. It worked, it had a job, and it assessed the results. The sidewalk was noticeably cleaner now. It even rolled back a bit, as if to spot anything overlooked, arm extended and ready.

One of the young men suddenly stepped forward. “Check this out!”

He kicked the sweeper from behind. With a giggle, he returned to the line, like a naughty child ducking out of his teacher’s sight. The little robot cried out and quivered. It hadn’t finished retracting its main arm, which was now bent and bleeding warm hydraulic liquid. The puddle grew on the cleaned pavement, pooling along the side of the robot’s body. An icon flashed on the top of its white shell.

“Help. Help,” the robot’s female voice called.

The woman in the tweed skirt glared at the men, but she did nothing. Pedestrians heading to another destination stepped around the puddle, not breaking their conversation. The other people in line at the sandwich shop watched the bot quiver, some muttering, but all remained where they stood.

The old man complained, spittle spraying from his mouth. “Won’t someone shut that piece of garbage up?”

The robot struggled to rise.

“Please,” the voice pleaded. “Please, help me.”