Beenu and Lovkesh: A Galactic odyssey

It was the best day of my life.

I'd spent the last ten years working in a factory. Every day, I got up at 6:30 AM, took the train to work, clocked in and then stood at my post for eight hours straight, repeating the same actions over and over again. My job was simple: guide metal sheets into a set of rollers to be turned into cars or trucks. After ten years of doing this, I was good at it. Like, really good at it.

I would take a look at one sheet of metal, see which rollers needed to be pressed on either side of it and then hold that metal against those rollers for three seconds just long enough for it to be shaped into whatever product we were making that month. It was so easy I could do it with my eyes closed. And after ten years of doing this exact same thing every day, I did start doing it with my eyes closed while standing in front of my station with no one around to judge me because most of us had figured out that production would go way down if we made everyone else wait for us when our breaks came up so there weren't any clocks around to check how long someone had been out from their station taking a leak or eating lunch. But no matter what I did to try and get some work done in between my shifts, by the time I'd clock out and head home, I hadn't even managed to finish reading the newspaper cover-to-cover.

So imagine my surprise when I got an invitation from some higher-ups at the factory asking me to come back in on a Saturday morning - supposedly they had something important they needed me to do. Of course, they didn't tell me what that big important task was but they gave me an extra week's pay as a "thank you" for coming back in on a weekend so I definitely wasn't going to turn them down even though I thought it was weird that these people who barely said two words to me over the past decade seemed suddenly interested in getting close enough to issue me a paycheck. But whatever, money is money so off I went and sure enough, now here I am sitting on top of a spaceship looking down at Earth from outer space and thinking about how great my life has been ever since that fateful day ten years ago when I decided to quit smoking cigarettes because who wants lung cancer when you can have this instead?

It all started when the higher-ups told me they wanted me back on Saturday because there were two things wrong with our current manufacturing process: one, we didn't have enough trucks rolling off the assembly line every month; and two, we weren't making enough truck parts to feed our assembly line machines. The second problem didn't seem like too much of a big deal but if we didn't fix the first problem soon enough then we would never be able to fix the second problem and at that point, we might as well just shut down this whole operation altogether because trucks are what made this company profitable in the first place so if we couldn't make any more trucks then why bother keeping this factory open? That's why they asked me for help, as some sort of special favor, because apparently I'm pretty good at making trucks without even breaking stride while holding metal sheets against rollers shaped like lips and spinning them around their center axis until all that remains is an empty shell which gets tossed into another machine that fills it with all sorts of goodies like seats and windows so people can use them for driving around town.

I wasn't sure how they expected me to fix this problem, but after using their computer system for a few minutes (which took forever because their computer system was really slow), I finally managed to get everything sorted out. Apparently, there were only five main parts that needed fixing: a wheelbase frame (which was okay), four axles (which were okay), four frames (which were okay), sixteen tires (which needed replacing), and twelve steering columns (which also needed replacing). For some reason, these last three parts were not being made as frequently as they used to be, which meant fewer trucks were getting made, which in turn meant fewer part shipments going out, lower profits, and more angry shareholders. But, thankfully, I still managed to keep my job in the process, so things are looking pretty great for me right now.

Anyway, after wasting most of Saturday morning trying to figure out what was wrong with their computer systems, suddenly the sun rose above Earth's horizon, which meant it was time for breakfast! Lucky for me, this ship has its own kitchen, so I don't need to worry about anything except finding something edible inside there. Unfortunately, all there seems to be are some stale crackers and moldy cheese but beggars can't be choosers so I grab some less-than-appetizing food and head back upstairs where I sit atop my spaceship thinking about how great my life has been ever since I took this job working