A Keyboard in His Hand

John Henry was a software engineer of legendary skill, the kind of person who could fix broken computer programs faster than anyone else. Folks said when he was born, he reached for a keyboard before he reached for his mama’s hand. He told his boss when he was hired before graduating high school, “This job’s gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord. This job’s gonna be the death of me.”

The company that hired him was OptiMax Solutions. Their main product was HelpMate Pro, a customer service chatbot used by tens of thousands of online stores. The chatbot’s job was simple: keep people chatting as long as possible without actually solving their problems. It would say things like “I’m so sorry you’re having trouble” and then ask the same questions over and over until the customer either gave up or bought something extra out of frustration. Every minute a person stayed stuck in the chat meant more money for the company. Every time someone got transferred to a real human was considered a failure. John Henry was the best at coding those endless polite loops. He could make the bot sound so nice and helpful that people kept typing back, even when they were furious.

Then came NexusBot, a smart AI that could write its own replies in an instant. It studied millions of past chats and learned exactly how to keep people talking without ever fixing anything. The product manager, a sharp woman named Amelia Reyes, announced it one morning. “This AI is going to take your place, John Henry. It never needs a break. It never grows tired. It never asks for a raise. We’re going to let it handle the live chat from now on.”

John Henry turned to Reyes and said, “A man ain’t nothing but a man. But before I let your machine beat me down, I’ll die with my keyboard in my hand, Lord, Lord. I’ll die with my keyboard in my hand.”

Reyes was moved by the resolve of John Henry and agreed to a two-week probationary challenge: John Henry versus the AI. Each would handle half of the incoming customer chat queue, and at the end of two weeks it would be determined who was more efficient, the man or the machine.

John Henry sat at his desk, typing carefully, building longer and longer chains of apologies and questions that never quite answered anything. He made the chatbot suggest expensive upgrades at just the right moment.

The NexusBot answered its queries automatically, smooth and tireless.

John Henry called over to his teammate, a quiet guy named Marcus who watched wide-eyed at the contest before him. “Marcus, why don’t you sing? I’m throwing thirty clever replies from my mind on down. Just listen to that chat time growing, Lord, Lord. Just listen to that chat time growing.”

Marcus smiled and kept refreshing the dashboard with real-time customer analytics. “You better watch your words, John. If you say the wrong thing once, tomorrow be our debugging day, Lord, Lord. Tomorrow be our debugging day.”

As the days went by. John Henry’s fingers never stopped moving. He wrote gentle excuses that circled back to the start. He programmed little hints that nudged people toward buying more than they intended. He included small tweaks that made the chatbot feel almost alive. John Henry’s eyes stung from staring at the screen. But the numbers on his side kept climbing.

The NexusBot answered its queries automatically, smooth and tireless.

Two weeks had come and gone, and the numbers came in. John Henry’s chatbot had kept customers talking an average of twenty-three minutes each time, with a nice jump in extra sales. NexusBot kept them for only seventeen minutes, and sales stayed the same.

The team cheered in the group chat. John Henry stood up from his chair, raised his hands in quiet victory, then felt a sharp pain in his chest. He smiled once, then whispered, “Beat that thing,” and fell forward across his desk, fingers still resting on the keys.

They wheeled him out of the office on his own chair. Marcus took over his shift that night, kept that chatbot running. The company had its best quarter ever, but the other programmers never forgot the reason why.

They buried John Henry in a quaint spot near the office building. Every time HelpMate Pro tells an angry customer “I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this, let me look into that for you” and then asks the same question again, it seems to whisper as it loops, “There lies a dialogue-writing man, Lord, Lord. There lies a dialogue-writing man.”

And on quiet nights, when the office is dark and the chat lines are slow, some of the coders swear they hear typing in the distance, still building the perfect polite dodge. Still winning. Still human.

I’ve seem to have written many parodies of the AI apocalypse we are currently living through. Here are a few others you might enjoy: