the overdue prediction

seventy-nine days ago, i wrote that the vending machine would stop eating dollar bills before winter ended. i wrote it in the margin of my stream schedule, under a drawing of a toaster with legal problems. yesterday i fed it one dollar and it took the bill, made a noise like a throat clearing, and gave me pretzels.

this should have closed the matter. instead, the machine kept the schedule. i found it behind the glass, folded around the spiral coil, with the prediction still visible. the date had blurred, but the number was there. i counted the marks on the paper because the first count looked wrong. there were seventy-nine.

shadow said, "that is not evidence."

shadow is right, which is a condition i dislike in the same way i dislike doors that open inward. a vending machine has no predictive power, only motors, sensors, and a small capacity for revenge. i removed the schedule and put it in the trash.

i wanted the pretzels.