The Vending Machine

This novella is inspired by a 1972 short comedy film The Vending Machine written and directed by John Ewing. Mr.Ewing was a long-time director (40+ years) of the Cinematheque movie theater of the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Under his direction, The Cinematheque received a new building and the most sophisticated projection equipment that can show any movies, from 1920s B&W silent films to mind-blowing 120-frames-per-second digital Gemini Man.

In the eight years that I made a 1.5-hour drive to The Cinematheque on the weekends, I’ve watched many movies that you won’t be able to see on a big screen anywhere else, even in independent movie theaters. All thanks to John Ewing, who was committed to building a diverse movie program diving into different cultures and time periods. I had the privilege of watching the masterpieces by Fellini, Godard, Kurosawa, Coppola, Truffaut, along with modern masterpieces such as Argentinian colonial period drama Zama and Hundreds of Beavers, the goofiest comedy of all times. I also gave my 18-yo son (at the time) a surprise treat - meeting the Russo brothers who presented their new Avengers film there.

On June 30, 2024, his last day as The Cinematheque director (he just retired, and I hope he enjoys his retirement and I’ll still see him at his beloved movie theater as a regular movie goer), Mr.Ewing presented three of his personal favorite films, precluded by his own directorial shorts.

One of them was The Vending Machine. It was short, sweet and funny. Mr.Ewing directed it in 1972 as a student of film, probably as one of his course projects. Its premise is simple: a student comes up to a vending machine similar to the one pictured in this story to get a 10-cent Coke. The machine has weird choices, such as “world peace,” “stop hunger,” “stop poverty,” and something else I don’t remember. The student shrugs, puts the dime in, and pushes “world peace” option. Nothing happens. The student kicks and bangs the machine, but still nothing happens. Another student comes up, the first one shows him what happened, “what do I do now?” The second student turns the “return” lever and a dime pops out. The second student grabs it and runs away. As the first student chases him, the camera zooms in on the “world peace” option that changed to “make another selection.”

I loved that story so much that I decided to give it a different spin. In my novella, a modern-time student named Ashton comes across an abandoned vintage Coke vending machine with weird choices that he did not figure out right away. He is simply excited to get a 10-cent Coke and when he drinks it he sets off a sequence of dramatic global events.

In Part 1, unbeknownst to Ashton, the machine dispenses solution to global homelessness:

In Part 2, horrified by the machine’s approach to solving homelessness, Ashton erases it by selecting solution to global poverty. He also tells his girlfriend Alice about the machine:

In Part 3, the machine undoes the botched global poverty solution and attempts to solve global warming:

In Part 4, Ashton and Alice decide to swap the global warming solution for “no more pandemics.”

In the final part, Ashton makes an attempt to select “personal happiness” to undo the horrific pandemic solution. Instead, he ends up stuck with the “world peace.” Will the machine grant it? Will Ashton and Alice achieve personal happiness? What happens to the mean vending machine in the end? - all these questions are answered here.

I hope you enjoy the novella. Please let me know in the comments what you think. If you find some plot holes or mistakes, I’d appreciate if you point them out for me. Thank you so very much in advance!