02/12/2023
Non-Rational Vending Machine
By Antonello Perfetto: Noise
Greg Nieuwsm
The white horse was pulling the sun into the sky, as it did every morning. I was in a field, walking and had happened across a vending machine. “What a curious place for a vending machine,” I thought to myself. I may even have said it aloud, for the field was empty and I will sometimes talk to myself when no one else is present. And when I get careless, I sometimes do it when others are around. I usually realize it only when I notice that people are inspecting me through narrowed eyes.
My eyes were now narrowed in a similar fashion trying to work out what a vending machine was doing in the middle of a field. Peering through the glass front, I noted the available wares:, a Russian doll, a painting my grandmother had done, some sewing accoutrements, a biography of the Polish painter Wladyslaw Podkowinski, an icon of a four-armed horse-headed god, a book about Napoleon’s campaigns in East Prussia.
The battles in that campaign were particularly bloody, and often inconclusive. In one, the French were being beaten, but Murat’s cavalry charge in the waning moments sent the Russians from the field. Bodies of men and horses were everywhere, but no advantage was won by either side. Stupid, senseless war.
A flock of migrating birds flew overhead, their shadows flying across the face of the machine. It was breakfast time, and I was hungry, but there was no food in the vending machine. I guess the chevaline stew I’d had for supper the night before would have to sustain me.
What was this vending machine doing here? Who put it here, and why? Was it some sort of practical joke, put here by a mischievous spirit to toy with me? Why was my grandmother’s painting there?
I wanted answers, but there were none to be had. Or rather, I needed to provide the answers myself.
I put my hand in my pocket and withdrew my only coin. I put in the machine and pulled a lever. Nothing happened, nothing came out.
There was nothing to do but laugh.
Credits
Released December 1, 2023
Antonello Perfetto: Noise
Greg Nieuwsma: More noise
Cover painting: Betty Gordon #