Off Level

A The cartridge on the Slopbox, and its one three-dimensional table: the picture is a tray seen from the front and above, and the whole tray swings with the tilt. The arrow keys, or a finger on the screen, tilt it and the marble rolls the way the tray goes; the middle of the screen is level, and B holds the picture still for anyone it makes seasick. It is a bench in the workshop that has slipped off level, and the apprentice is the one tilting it back.

Six trays, each a plan the picture is built from: a plank with four holes; the gutters, a snake through twelve rooms; slick, where oil sends the marble into the walls and mud holds it; bumpers, with a bar sweeping the middle; bridges, a sea of pits with planks across it that get narrower; and the long table, sixteen rooms with everything in them. A hole drops the marble back to the last pad it touched and takes four seconds off the clock. Nineteen stray bearings lie about the trays, each worth three seconds, and a hundred points that nobody can spend. The last cup takes the last marble, and the table is level, or near enough. Like everything else here, it was made by a machine.