Neuro Logical
乖 - Cheng Him
(kuai, from mandarin, meaning well behaved, usually used on children)
in a dark alley in taipei a cleaner lady puts a pack of kuai kuai
biscuits on top of a vending machine. it is a nondescript machine
filled with off brand drinks ever since it was first placed there,
though those who know of the machine swear its drinks are
sweeter than any other machine’s. on its end, the machine
makes little note of this, replying each idle compliment with
the steady thrum machines of its sort are predisposed towards
making. till date, no one has wondered how the lady manages to
reach the top of the machine almost twice her height, yet each
time she comes by the machine is just short enough for her to
reach its top to wipe it down in its entirely, and when she coos
“乖, 乖,” and puts yet another packet of biscuits atop its head
its lights glow ever so brighter and all its drinks become just that
much sweeter. this goes on for years until one day, the lady does
not show up and the national broadsheets murmur about a
rich man’s son who was let off too lightly for getting behind the
wheel of a lamborgini after an evening at the KTV. shortly after
the machine vanishes and no one thinks to ask where it has gone;
after all, things change so much these days, and who will miss a
single vending machine? but those who used to frequent it will
grumble about how the drinks from the other machines just don’t
taste the same. in the days to come, the broadsheets will scream
about how the scion to the largest companies this side of taiwan
was found bludgeoned to death in his own bed, his body reduced
to gristle, how the investigators came in and were stumped to find
a vending machine standing atop the wreckage of his body, plugged
into nothing, thrumming happily nonetheless, as it was wont to do.