The Idol

The vending machine standeth in the corridor, the work of men’s hands, of steel and of glass; and it is lit within, and it hummeth, and it holdeth good things behind the glass in ordered rows; and thou art hungry.

It hath a mouth, but it eateth only; a slot for thy coin, and it taketh, and giveth not again. It hath an eye, a reader of thy money, but it seeth not thy need. It hath a belly full of bread, there behind the glass, in rank and row, and it will not open unto thee. Thou puttest in thy coin, and it swalloweth it down; and thou pressest the number of the thing thou desirest, and the coil within turneth, and turneth, and stoppeth. And the thing hangeth upon the very edge, and falleth not; and there it hangeth — thine, and bought, and paid for — a hand’s breadth beyond thy reach, behind the glass.

And thou pressest again, and nothing cometh. And thou smitest the glass with the flat of thy hand, and it answereth not. Thou takest it by the sides, and shakest it, and it moveth not, being heavy as a tomb and bolted to the wall; and it hath swallowed thy coin, and rendered thee neither the bread nor the coin again, and there is none to hear thee in all the empty corridor.

They have mouths, but they speak not; slots have they, but they render not; coils have they, but the coils turn only unto the edge, and there withhold. The hungry cometh and putteth in his offering before it, and boweth himself down to peer beneath the flap, and smiteth it, and beseecheth it, and it heareth not, neither doth it answer, nor deliver up the least of its bread; for it is the work of hands, and there is no breath in it, and it careth nothing for the hunger of him that trusteth in it.

And they that make them are like unto them; so is every one that putteth his trust in the machine that standeth in the wall. He goeth unto it hungry, and layeth down his coin before it, and believeth in his heart that this time the coil shall turn the whole turn, and the bread shall fall into his hand. And the coil turneth unto the edge, and stoppeth. And he departeth from before it empty, and hungry still, and poorer by a coin — from before the lit and humming thing, that hath a mouth and speaketh not, and eyes and seeth not, and a belly full of bread, and giveth none.

It may be so. It may not.