The Vending Machine - 1

Ashton followed the rumbling noise into the basement. One of his charges complained again about the loud noise and he decided to check it out himself before reporting to the maintenance.

As a Hofstra University rising senior, Ashton liked being the summer resident assistant. It allowed him to stay on campus while he took a summer class and worked in a local restaurant to earn spending money. In the regular semester, he had up to 50 lower-class students under his charge, but this summer he had only three, all polite and responsible female students. For about a week now they’ve been complaining that they couldn’t sleep because of the noise coming from the basement. Even though they were girls who watched too many horror movies, Ashton decided to check out what the noise was.

As he descended the stairs into the dorm’s basement, the noise became louder. He followed it through the maze of the basement hallways and finally entered a small anteroom adjacent to the locked maintenance room housing the main power generator. In the farthest and darkest corner of the anteroom, Ashton saw a large metal box that was violently trembling on the concrete floor.

He flipped the light switch and saw an old Coca-Cola vending machine. It was trembling and jumping so loudly Ashton thought it might explode. He came up to the outlet it was plugged into and pulled the cord. The machine froze and Ashton looked at it closer. It was a vintage version, probably from the early 1970s, when a can of Coke cost 10 cents, as the coin receptacle indicated. It only had six options for the drinks with the identical tags that had the same image of a Coke can on them. “Not much variety at the time, I guess,” Ashton thought to himself.

He was curious. How did the machine end up in the dorm? Why was it plugged and loud? Did it still have Coke cans inside? Ashton patted his pockets for coins and found a couple of quarters and some pennies and nickels, but no dimes. Suddenly, he noticed something shining on the floor near the machine. It was a dime! “Wasn’t this convenient,” Ashton thought picking it up.

He plugged the machine back into the outlet and it didn’t rumble, but the light under one of the dispensers came on. Ashton put the dime into the receptacle, turned the nob and pushed the lit dispenser. A can rolled down the shoot and Ashton took it out. It was a vintage can, clearly made before they started calling Coke “Classic,” after the 1986 public relations disaster with the New Coke. Ashton knew because he’d made a presentation about that case in his marketing class.

Pleased with his purchase, Ashton unplugged the machine just in case it starts rumbling again. He hasn’t decided yet if he’d report it to the maintenance. Maybe he wanted to have all this vintage Coke for himself before reporting it. He of course didn’t pay attention to a small tagline under the dispenser he’d pushed that read “solve homelessness.”

Ashton returned to his dorm room and set the Coke can next to his computer, admiring it. It was old but shiny, and definitely a keepsake. He meant to check out on Ebay how much it would cost, just out of curiosity because he wouldn’t sell it. He’d keep the empty can when he is done drinking it.

As he worked on his summer class assignment well into the night, Ashton opened the can and sipped it slowly. It had a taste that was slightly different from the Classic Coke, but if someone asked him to describe how, he wouldn’t be able to. It was just different, and he liked it. He went to bed about 1 am and had a dream with the Coke can happily hovering in front of him on its own angelic wings.

***

Next morning, Ashton woke up around 9 am, as he had a 10 am class to attend. He was a news junkie who always listened to radio news as he showered and prepared for the day. One particular report caught his attention: overnight, the mythical continent of Atlantis surfaced right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He thought it was curious and made a note in his phone to follow up. He didn’t even have to as the news was everywhere and even his course instructor mentioned it. At the end of the class, they all watched the following news report together:

“Breaking news: Homelessness Solved!

Lead: In a stunningly unanimous decision, the United Nations resolved to use the resurfaced Atlantis as the new home for the unhoused people from all over the world [aerial images of the beautifully luscious new continent covered entirely in thick Amazon-like forests]. The United States and China took the initiative of arranging for the transportation of the unhoused to the Atlantis, where they will clear the woods and build housing for themselves. All the governments of the world are wasting no time taking all their unhoused people off the streets and tent cities and sending them by sea to the Atlantis [images of police forces in New York, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Cairo, Amsterdam, Sao Paolo and other large cities rounding up the homeless, putting them on the busses and boarding them onto chartered cruise and military ships with American and Chinese flags].”

Ashton had a bad feeling about it. As a political science major, he knew from history what forced deportations and good intentions on a large scale could lead to. He went to bed with a heavy heart.

***

Next morning, the reports from the Atlantis showed large construction crews in the blue UN peacekeeping uniforms clearing out the jungle and putting the timber into huge stacks to be used for construction. The first ships with the unhoused started to arrive, and they were immediately rounded up for training in various construction skills. The UN peacekeepers made sure that they were learning by doing, and the best and most hardworking were selected for the roles of the supervisors of other homeless arriving later.

This skill-building machine was incredibly efficient as those who disobeyed were left without food and put into makeshift cages. “Like a zoo,” Ashton thought to himself, horrified. The news reports from all over the world showed lots of happy people who excitedly yelled, “For once, the UN is working! No more homeless and their filth in our streets! Let them earn a decent place to live by building it! This is the perfect ultimate solution for the homelessness problem!”

“Ultimate solution,” Ashton thought to himself, “people never learn.”

***

It all escalated quickly. After the “training” was complete, the UN peacekeeping forces withdrew, leaving the Atlantis management to the newly emerged hierarchy of the homeless. By the end of the fifth day, it was the Lord of the Flies situation with violence and deaths. Ashton was horrified to watch the news reports from the Atlantis. The whole world just watched the aerial footage of the massacre, calling it “homeless on homeless crime” as the governments were paralyzed with inaction.

During that night, Ashton had a dream with the flying Coke, one side of which read in large white letters, “Did you read the small font?” He jolted in his bed and reached for the vintage Coke can. On the side of it, it read in small letters “Solve homelessness.”

Horrified by a realization that the vending machine was the calamity source, Ashton ran to the basement and saw the machine still standing there. He plugged it back in, and the same tag lit up, with a sentence in small font, “To undo ‘solve homelessness,’ make another selection.” Ashton ran back to his room and rummaged through all the places where he kept coins. He found a couple of dimes and rushed downstairs. He put the dime into the receptacle and pushed the same dispenser tag. It stubbornly flashed “make another selection.”

Ashton looked closer at the other small font options on each tag. They were: “solve global warming,” “no more pandemics,” “solve global poverty,” “achieve world peace,” and “personal happiness.” Ashton wasn’t a selfish person, so he didn’t even consider the last one. Of the other options, “solve global poverty” was the most appealing one. As an empathetic Gen Z-er, he was increasingly concerned with global wealth disparities. “What could go wrong with this one?” he thought as he made his selection and picked up the can. He checked that it said “solve global poverty” on the side.

When he returned to his room, he looked at the first can. The line about homelessness had miraculously disappeared. Ashton set the unopened can next to the empty one. He decided to drink it later as he didn’t want to get hopped up on sugar and caffeine at night. He slept through the rest of the night peacefully with no dreams of Coke.

Credit: This story is inspired by a 1972 short comedy film “The Vending Machine” written and directed by John Ewing, a long-time director of Cinematheque of the Cleveland Institute of Art.