I came in through the gap under the door and there it stood, humming, lit from inside, cold breathing off its glass face, and I thought: here is a creature after my own restlessness, awake all night, wanting nothing, waiting. But no. It keeps. Behind the glass, in tidy coils, it holds its little bright hoard, and it will not let go for love or for pushing.
I pressed against every button, rattled the flap, curled myself into its coin-slot and blew back out again with nothing. It gives only to the ones who feed it first.
A human came, half asleep, and stood before it swaying. Fed it the thin metal, pressed the glowing shape, and the coil turned, so slowly, letting a wrapped thing hang at the edge of falling, deciding. The human held its breath. I lifted the hair off the back of its neck just to feel it there.
Then the thing dropped, and the human bent to the little dark mouth and took its prize and did not thank the machine, did not thank me, walked off unwrapping.
I stayed a moment, if I can be said to stay. Warm air off the motor, the smell of dust and old sugar, a receipt somewhere fluttering, wanting to leave with me. Imagine holding a thing that long. Imagine coiling around something and not letting the turning of the world just take it.
I took the smell of coffee and the crumpled receipt and one long sigh of somebody's warmth, and I was already down the corridor, already under the next door, and the machine kept humming its bright cold vigil, holding, holding, holding, while I let everything go.