Born after a short discussion elsewhere about foals-in-a-can and foals-in-a-ball being the same thing, and about some other stuff.
A kid, around twelve, stood in front of a large vending machine by the local mall entrance, surrounded by his friends of similar age. His hands pressed against machine’s metal frame, almost hot to touch as it radiated the heat stored throughout the day, he gazed at the large glass panel with intense focus. It was late afternoon, a time to enjoy the final weeks of summer break. Their days, a blend of biking, video games, lake swims and tossing rocks at local pack of ferals, passed in a pleasant and repetitive rhytm. Moments like this right now, simple yet significant, were like milestones marking the passage of time until inevitable return to school.
The vending machine looked somewhat shoddily constructed, with riveted metal plates that were bent and dented in some spots. It was adorned with colorful imagery of happy fluffies of all colors and breeds, stylized after manga and shouting out expressive kanji symbols that not one of the kids understood. Not that they cared. The kid inserted a crumpled $20 bill into the machine’s receptacle. There was a short whirr as the hole swallowed the bank note, followed by an electronic ding, as the credit counter jumped from zero to one. The kid put his hand on a large metal crank, closing his eyes for a few seconds.
“Okay, here goes nothing lol”, he said before rotating the crank clockwise.
With loud ticks and clanks, the machine sparked to life and after some rummaging through its internal storage, it spat out a colorful ball on the top of a large ramp behind the glass panel. The ball was white and blue, with a large gray button used to pop it open, maybe somewhat reminiscent of once so popular Pokemon franchise. It started rolling down the ramp before hitting first rods of a long Pachinko playfield. Rolling down, slaloming between the rods, it eventually landed in the “no bonus” slot.
“Damn, no extra credit again”, someone in the group yelped with frustration in their voice.
Finally, with a loud thud, the ball fell into the bottom drawer. The kid pulled out his newly won Foal-in-a-Ball reward and squeezed it open, as other kids were observing it all in silence, intense concentration painted across everyone’s faces. Inside, there was a tiny brown colored foal, panting heavily as it spent majority of its life inside this oven of a vending machine. It looked incredibly dizzy too, its gaze moving around before fixing on kid’s face. “Nyu dada?”, it asked with a weak voice, malnourished after spending who knows how long being fed only some basic nutrient sludge to minimize its excrements. Still, the typical stench of fluffy feces was noticeable.
“Fuck!”, the kid yelled with intense anger, quickly looking around afterwards to see if there were no adults around, witnessing his foul language. “Another poopie? This trash game spits common finds only, bet it’s rigged.”
He threw the ball on the ground, distressed foal peeping in panic as it fell out and onto the pavement. Then, as his friends laughed at his bad luck, he stomped on the foal which once more yelped, its scream cut short as the tiny and fragile spine was crushed under the sole of a brand new Air Jordan. The kid kicked the corpse aside, onto a small pile of maybe three dozen other common finds, all poopie colored.
“Come on, let’s throw some firecrackers at ferals instead.”
