The Vending Machine
At 3:12 a.m., Elliott stood in front of the vending machine at his local Costco, barefoot and in pajamas. He didn’t remember walking there. The area was silent, and even the distant rumble of cars and whoosh of breezes were missing.
The machine wasn’t like the typical snack dispensers. It was a dusty green, with an intricate coin mechanism, and it was older than any man-made object that Elliott had ever seen. Its brass buttons were labeled not with numbers, but with words. Behind the foggy glass, there were no snack bags, no bottles – just faint glimmers of light, shifting here and there like liquid. Elliott scanned the five buttons with words on the vending machine and whispered the choices like a secret. “Second chances. A Lost Memory. Truth. Last Goodbye. Undo.”
Elliott’s mind was still processing the meaning of each of these phrases when his finger, as if possessed, drifted to the option “Last Goodbye” and pressed the button. A coin slot peeked open. Elliott reached instinctively into his pocket – and pulled out a shining, cold coin he had a feeling wasn’t there before.
Clink.
The machine’s whirs somehow felt loud and soft at the same time, and the glass started fading, and the world around Elliott started spinning. His eyes started to close, and when they reopened, he found himself standing in his old living room. The one with the cozy atmosphere, worn brown couch, and creaky floorboards. Rain tapped on the thin glass windows, and as Elliott scanned the room, his eyes landed on something.
Curled up in a blanket, on the fuzzy rug, was Elliott’s beloved tortoiseshell cat Caramel, who died a couple years ago. Elliott remembered, clear as day, how she used to snuggle into him whenever he was sad, and offer him comfort every moment she was by his side. Caramel looked up, her green eyes glittering as Elliott opened his arms wide. She padded over to him and nuzzled into him, and as Elliott embraced her like he had a thousand times, the thought that this was the last time he’ll ever see her left his mind. When he reluctantly pulled away and blinked again, he was back in Costco, standing in front of the vending machine, coin popping out of the change slot to land back in his pocket. He looked up, and saw that the vending machine’s screen now read: “OUT OF STOCK”.
He didn’t cry, despite the ache in his heart. He just shoved his hands back into the pocket of his pajamas, where he subconsciously knew that the coin would stay, waiting until the machine brought Elliott back again
