Before him at the top of the dune stood an apparition. It was a rectangular slab, a bright red dab on a colorless canvas, twice his height, the sun glinted on its edges. He did not hesitate to sidle up to it, a kind and expected friend, grinning with relief as he slipped a coin into the slot beneath the words "Drink Coca-Cola in bottles." He stood back, giving the mechanism space to fulfill its single task and deliver carbonated manna from heaven.
The aluminum monolith produced a rusty grunt and nothing more.
EMPTY
Micky blinked, unbelieving, and gave the dispenser an encouraging slap on the side. It did not respond, only stood proudly on its perch beneath the circle sky. He opened his mouth to release an anguished howl, but in cruel mimicry of the machine nothing emerged. Micky lashed out, pummeling the flanks of the thing with sheer brutal force like Sonny Liston going at the exposed ribs of an opponent. But this wasn't soft flesh that his knuckles scraped against, rather unrelenting sharp-edged metal which mocked him with its unbudgeability. Still he lashed out, kicked and cried and climbed and pounded, unable to hold back his rage. Pitiful. Pathetic. Primal. The fury of a primate. This was a part of him that really existed.
