Inside the Vending Machine
Inside the vending machine, a lightbulb hums against the darkness, against the vast parking lot, against the vacant streets and locked house fronts, against the indifferent black sky, its illumination distorted by the colorful rectangular translucent image of a can of Coke dripping with moisture at an angle.
Some quirk in the electrical grid – someone left this thing plugged in, long past the point where it makes sense to give it power. The machine advertises and sells to no one, no passersby, nor stray dogs, nor feral cats, nor thirsty rats, nor animals or humans of any other kind. It sits unperceived in the largeness of the city, a lightbulb shining brightly within.
I don't know if that bulb thinks it's a metaphor or a symbol or what. I just know it's there, as I walk past it at 2am, on my way home from a club that I hated, my hood tangling my long hair.
Bryan Vale is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. His fiction and poetry have appeared in several journals, including Streetcake Magazine, Paragraph Planet, Unstamatic Magazine, and Paddler Press. He has read for the memoir journal Five Minutes. bryanvalewriter.com | Twitter and Instagram at @bryanvalewriter.