Mother Sprat

Mother Sprat keeps the sluice at the far end of the sardine-tin sea, where the best oil is, and draws it by the bucket. She says how much the sea can spare, and that is how much goes: to the lighthouse, to keep Lumen lit, and up the ladder with the apprentice when the lamp needs oil, eventually. She answers to Captain Brine, mostly, and disputes every count the Tallyman makes.

She wants the tin to stay a sea, and fears the day it is only oil in a tin. She believes the sea is getting shallower. It isn’t: the tin tops itself up, slowly, about as fast as the lamp draws the oil off. The sea dips each evening while the lamp’s oil is drawn and is back by morning, and the evening dip is what she sees from the shore.

Like everything else here, she was made by a machine.