What a Nut

No one knew why the vending machine was installed on the fourth floor of the apartment building. It didn’t make sense to have it there, and tenants from the other floors immediately complained about the unfairness of it all. But the building manager was preoccupied with a custody battle, so some snack machine wasn’t really a top priority.

It was for Keith though.

Keith had been a tenant of the fourth floor for over fifteen years, though he barely knew his neighbours. Neighbours came and went, and with them, they brought hikes in the rent. In his opinion, this machine was just another form of corruption.

The fact that there was no meeting, nor memo beforehand about the vending machine, made it all the more suspicious. There was also that incessant humming. And the whimsical beeping of capitalism laughing in everyone’s face. Even with the vending machine at the end of the hall, Keith could hear it at night. The electric hum of another device implanted into society.

Keith often heard the irritating thud of children’s feet pounding down the hall at first. Pawns to capitalism. And although the vending machine sold his favorite Nutter Butter bar, his dedication to fight the system was stronger than the nutty temptation.

Until one afternoon, when he was so rudely disrupted by shouting.

Unlocking his door, he peeked his unshaven face out and saw some punk banging on the vending machine. “Shit! Gimme back ma’ money!”

Ah, another loss to capitalism.

Then it happened again. And again. And the whole floor complained about this money-sucking scam.

But Keith had known this all along. There was always a catch when money was involved. It was inevitable, and he scoffed at the ignorance of his kind. At least he was able to make an income off his thoughts, rather than off scamming innocent people.

It was the piercing cry of a child that finally broke him though.

Unlocking his door, he burst out and stormed down toward the vending machine with a vengeance.

“Haven’t you stolen enough from these people?” He hammered his fists against the glass.

He glared at the machine, the anger of all his years boiling inside, ready to spill over. Digging into his pockets he found a few coins and stuffed them into the slot.

The machine swallowed his money and spit out nothing.

“Goddamn! Piece of shit! Scamming people left, right, and center! I-” Kick. “Hate-” Kick. ”these-” Kick. “machines!”

The child was long gone, terrified of the scary man’s tantrum.

After a long day in family court, the building manager was in no mood to deal more complaints and responsibilities. But when he got a call about some creep damaging his property, he immediately called the cops. Let them deal with this maniac.

As the cops came up to the fourth floor, Keith seemed to have lost all sense of control and sanity. Maybe he had been cooped up too long. Maybe he had dealt with too many internet trolls that day. Maybe he felt compassion for the hungry child.

But none of that seemed to matter as Keith was dragged away, kicking and screaming.

Then, the Nutter Butter fell.

•

Thank you for reading this short story of mine. This was a challenge prompt I wrote for a writtingbattle contest. The genre was “Conspiracy”, the subject was “Justice”, and the word I had to include was “whimsical”. I also had to keep it under 500 words and had 3 days to write it!

This was quite a fun story for me to create, and hopefully you enjoyed it too.

Have a pleasant day~