Falling Platypus - Chapter 1

“Less is more.”
—Terry Rosencrantz

“People are stupid.”
—Terry Rosencrantz

At the end of his long and cryptic career, the philosopher Terry Rosencrantz said he believed just two things to be true: Less is more, and people are stupid. So saying, he published a book of completely blank pages, $39.99 recommended retail price, and it was well-received; and thus he proved both his points. With the proceeds of this final book, he retired from the public eye and was never seen or heard from again.

But this story isn’t about Terry Rosencrantz, as fascinating as he may or may not be. It is, however, a tale of less and more. Specifically, it’s about Serena Mayfield, who had everything, and myself, who had nothing.

But we’ll come to that later.

* * *

In the town where I used to live, a little town of suburban sprawl in the middle of a windswept valley so wide you couldn’t see the mountains on either side; in this little town, a town where the grain grew golden and the mint grew green and smelled fresh and pungent; in this little town, where Public Works Way was the main downtown boulevard and home to the sewage treatment plant, as well; in this town, a town called Walm, there was a pub called The Slab. They had cntry ’n’ roc music two nights a week and church on Sundays. It had been there for about a million years, despite being almost closed down on a yearly basis, and attracted locals of the highest caliber, such as myself and my friend Joey Brunoe.

Joey Brunoe was a fat man who wore an overcoat stuffed with turkey feathers. He ate hamburgers for breakfast and drank beer by the case. Joey and I went to The Slab at least two nights a week, me to spend the money I earned as a human vending machine, he because… Well, actually, I don’t know why.

The main thing is, none of it’s there anymore. Not Joey Bru­noe or The Slab or Public Works Way or even Walm. It happened to be in the way when a freak asteroid hit Earth and wiped it clean off the map.

But at the time I was working as a human vending machine, it was still there, and Joey Brunoe and I were inside drinking beer and listening to cntry ’n’ roc.

“I sure do love cntry ’n’ roc,” Joey Brunoe said to me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

“Say, do you have any more money?” Joey Brunoe asked. “Because I don’t have any.”

I checked my wallet. Life as a human vending machine was pretty rough.

The way it worked was: Instead of having a regular vending machine with a glass window at the front and a bunch of junk food or whatever for sale on the racks inside, the human vending machine was just a big black box with pictures of the items available inside and the correct letter and number code to punch if you wanted to buy something. Little orange lights lit up on the inside, where there was a hollow for the human of the hu­man vending machine to stand, and the human had to coordinate the lights with the product. All the information had to be memorized, and then memorized backwards, as it looked back­wards from the inside; and then the human had to grope for the product which was somewhere inside the vending machine with him. Unless it was out of stock.

Meanwhile, the person on the other side had put in their money and was waiting impatiently. The human inside the vend­ing machine had to hope he found the right product when he put it through the drop slot for the customer on the other side to take. If it was, and if service was particularly quick, the customer would often leave a tip in the drop slot as a thank you. And this was how human vending machines made money.

It was a thankless job.

So when I checked my wallet and found it empty, I wasn’t surprised. “I got nothing,” I told Joey Brunoe.

“Nothing?” Joey Brunoe said. “Nothing! Why you always got nothing, boyo? I tell you, I sit around bouncing my yoyos all day long, and at the end of the day, when I go to have a beer with my friend, he doesn’t even have any money.”

“Is that what you do all day?” I asked him.

“Sure is,” Joey Brunoe said. He slammed an empty beer bot­tle on the bar counter and pulled a yoyo out of his pocket. “One day, I’m going to be the world champion,” he said, showing off his technique. “Then, I don’t have to worry about working and people will pay me just to look at me.”

Joey Brunoe was wrong. He never became world champion, and no one ever paid him just so they could look at him. The as­teroid hit Walm long before any of that could happen.

* * *

“It sure was fun to go to The Slab,” Joey Brunoe said, rubbing his hands. He said that every time we left The Slab. “I’ll see you Sunday, right? For church?”

“Sure will!” I said. We both went to church at The Slab be­cause beer was discounted during service.

But I was wrong, too. By the time Sunday, which was three days away, rolled along, I would be long gone from town. But I didn’t know that yet.

* * *

I made my way back to my vending machine on Public Works Way. The familiar smell of sewage drifted on a breeze that always blew towards town, never away. I could smell it even in­side the vending machine. Even with nose plugs.

If anyone asked, I was just double-checking that I’d locked it. But the truth was, I slept in my vending machine at night. The truth was I couldn’t afford to rent a place on the wage I made as a human vending machine. It might not strictly have been allowed per company policy, but I figured what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, and there was always the chance someone would want to buy something in the middle of the night.

I turned out the indicator light and fell asleep in the vending machine. The indicator light indicated that a human was in residence and available to vend.

* * *

When I woke up, the vending machine was bouncing. I hit the panic button, to be used in case of emergency, and the door popped open at once. I couldn’t smell sewage anymore. I couldn’t see anything.

I felt my way to a wall of corrugated steel. It felt like the in­terior of a truck. So did the bouncing motion that had wakened me. My hand found a lever, which I pulled; something swung open, and suddenly I could see again.

Two blinding white eyes glared at me. They turned out to be the headlights of a car. I was in a truck, on a road next to a swamp nowhere near Walm. I could see its reflection in a pond to the side of the road.

The truck belonged to the company that owned the vending machines. They must have been in the middle of replacing them. And with the indicator light out, they had had no way to know I was inside, so they packed it up and shipped it out.

A dozen or so empty human vending machines stood beside and behind mine. Overheard a full white moon looked down on us—the truck, the car, the vending machines, and me. Where were we?

I heard a tapping.

Tap, tap, tap. Tap. Tap. Tap, tap, tap.

“Who’s there?” I said.

The tapping came again.

I followed it to the back of a truck, where it was loudest. It seemed to be coming from one of the vending machines, wedged extra tightly between its fellows. I tapped on it.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap, the answer came.

“Is there somebody in there?” I demanded.

“Yes!” came a muffled shriek. “Help me, help me, help me! Please, please, please! I’m stuck, I’m stuck, I’m stuck!”

“Can’t you hit the panic button?” I asked.

The voice gave a hysterical laugh. “What do you think I hit?” it said. “And when that didn’t work, what do you think I did?! Yes, I panicked!”

“All right, hang on, then,” I said, and heaved at the first vending machine. With an almighty scraping, it slid a little, re­vealing—

The back of the vending machine with someone trapped inside.

“I still can’t get out! You moved the wrong one!” the voice cried. It began to sob. “I know I shouldn’t have been living in here. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Don’t torment me! Please, just get me out! I promise I’ll never do it again, I promise!”

Bracing myself against a second row of vending machines, I heaved with all my strength. The other vending machine budged, and more than that: it toppled into the next one, which toppled into the next one, which toppled into the next one, which toppled out of the truck. The door of the last one popped open and a fat man rolled out. “Hey!” he shouted indignantly. Apparently, a lot of people slept in their vending machines.

Behind us, the car’s brakes screeched, the tires smoked, and the driver swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid the bouncing vending machine as it smashed into the asphalt.

Screech-crash, screech-crash, screech-crash! went half a dozen cars in both directions, as they tried to avoid the vend­ing machine in the middle of the road, and each other. The wrecks formed a pyramid.

Meanwhile, the man trapped in the vending machine got out and squealed. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Oh, Mr. Inspector, please don’t turn me in!”

“Just don’t do it again!” I told him sternly, and he nodded and ran straight off the back of the truck. “Wait, it’s moving!” I cried, but he’d already exited and died, a splat on the road.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and went back to my own vending machine to see if there was anything I wanted to stock up on before I left. A change of pace would do me good, and this seemed like as good a time as any to get out of the human vending machine business. I might not even try to go back to Walm. It was kind of a hole.

Most of the stuff in my vending machine wasn’t the sort of stuff I’d use, so I just took a packet of Kleenex and a cardboard box that had never been opened.

Meanwhile, the truck was slowing down. The driver probably noticed the disaster unfolding on the highway behind him. When it had slowed to a safe speed, I jumped out and into the bushes at the side of the road.

“A new beginning for me!” I said, and patted my cardboard box.