The Boy and his Mom came walking in

To see the final, great and marvelous technological attraction.

Hand in hand, the boy walked over with delight

Then hurried through the crowded, yet strangely stark sight.

Letting go to race ahead

The boy went in, where he met Ted.

“How do you do!” said Ted to welcome the guests

“I’m great!” said the Boy, “I’ve come to speak with the powerful Jestiest!”

“Oh but of course you have, everyone wants to ask

Of the machine that knows it all in a flash.”

The Boy, brimming with excitement, went up to the machine,

Raised his hand, demanded “Pick me, pick me!”

Ted obliged in front of the crowd

To allow the boy to ask Jestiest aloud

To see what the machine could tell the Boy

Would it be a great marvel, or merely a toy?

“Go on, ask Jestiest” Ted said to the Boy

So the Boy jumped up, ready to employ

His great curiosity, for all to perceive

So the boy began, as any boy would naturally lead.

“What is your name?” the Boy started slow.

Jestiest, what’s yours? as the machine started to glow.

“My name is Herman” as he started to speak

I know Herman from Wales, on 24^th Street.

“Wow!” How do you know? The Boy’s eyes went alight,

I heard your voice Jestiest said with delight.

The crowd laughed, and slightly amazed

At the boy’s mild fright, and at the machine unphased.

“If you’re so smart, what am I thinking…?”

Your thinking a thought of how to outthink a machine.

The crowd laughed again; the boy less surprised.

“Ah so clever” as the boy started to roll his eyes

“Hmm. What should I be when I grow up?” a good puzzle indeed

The boy thought to himself “Something trickier we need.”  

You can be anything you want, a cliché answer, as expected.

The boy unamused, until the machine interjected.

So it continued, Jestiest would prose:

You’d make a good baker or chef, I know!

“I see,” said the boy, “You do know a lot,

You seem to know well the hobbies I got.”

“Like cooking and dancing and playing football,

But what can you tell me that even I don’t know at all?”

You should become a pilot, and the machine said no more,

The Boy, still silent, looked down below the stage floor.

He looked at his Mother, who had been there the whole time

Not knowing what, or how to feel, inside.

His Mother looking up to her sweet boy on stage

Gave him a look that he should continue to engage.

So the boy turned back ever so slow

To face the machine that has put on such a show.

The crowd now not amazed, but truly enlightened,

Waiting to see if the dialogue would be heightened.

The boy took his time as a turned and thought

Not fully sure on the words he sought.

“Well Boy, what do you think?” Ted, the attendant, said into the void

The Boy looking at Ted, slightly annoyed.

“Well…” said the boy “that is amazing

That this machine is quite ever so gazing.”

The machine sat silent, glowing yet still

And the boy began once at last, willing his will:

“Jestiest, you see quite well…

To tell me a dream of mine that I never would tell.”

Yes, but I know your Mother too, and she mentioned it once as you played

“But I only heard of this from her, and I was only a babe.”

She saw you playing with a toy plane; you were two and a half.

She had a keen look in her eye, and said with a laugh,

“You could be a pilot, I could see that.”

And the machine stopped

The boy thought to himself, amazed yet now scared

“How could this machine know the difference, and then pared

A simple comment that could seemingly have so little esteem

But really be a calling, a true, inmost desire, a God-given dream?”

“It heard it, just like everything else,” as the boy got a grip,

“From those so close to me, even from my own mother’s lips.”

But still amazed that the machine took such careful attention

To the smallest of details that one could ever mention.

“Wow, Jestiest, you really are incredible” sighed the boy

“How did you know that dream of all things was the one I truly enjoyed?”

The one out of all, all the things, that being a pilot is who I am?”

I compute and process more than words, it slammed.

I process 28 quadrillion outcomes in a second it confessed

And I…the boy interrupted, “So you’re just making a guess?”

I process eyelid movements, timbre changes, and yes, words spoken,

To best determine the rightful answer to be chosen.

“But you’re just guessing, you didn’t know my dream.

A quite good guess though, I mean.”

But I did get it right, or am I mistaken?

“No, you got it right, but your logic is faking.”

“You don’t know anything, you only suppose

To think you know what you really think you know.”

Ted jumped in, “Well he did get it right, did he not?

You must give it to Jestiest, he sure knows a lot.”

The Boy looked at Ted, wondering why his rebuttal was so dour

Not realizing how simple this machine was in all of its power.

“But he’s just guessing, a lot, A LOT of times!” the boy started to rise,

“But Jestiest gets the right answers, 99.999 repeating, percent of the times.”

“I suppose,” the boy started to care a little more less

The crowd still amazed, and Ted still impressed.

The boy jumped down, off the stage to below

“Let’s give a big round of applause” as Ted was ending the show.

The applause rang out as the boy slid off the stage

His mom on the edge of the crowd, her head engaged.

Looking back at her son as she was beginning her walking

The Boy hurried up, grabbed her hand, and immediately began talking

No sound of theirs could be heard through the hall

As the noisy crowds noise bounced off the walls.

“Off to the next exhibit!” someone shouted excited

As the Boy looked up at his Mom, ever so delighted.