There is something about the feel of a coin. It’s that cool heavy feeling. I had a year’s worth of Alcoholics Anonymous coins in my pocket, and I jingled them as I walked down this country road.
The concrete road was cracked and unmarked, and the sky was darkening. A few hundred meters ahead stood what looked like an old-timey photo booth.
It was pink with red hearts drawn on the outside. Rain darkened the concrete, then covered it in sheets. The sky cracked, and I sprinted into the booth.
Inside, it was dry and bright. “Insert AA coin to begin,” the screen read. I reached into my pocket and inserted a chip into the slot.
“What colour do you feel today?” asked the booth.
“Blue,” I said.
“Which shade of blue?” There were options on the screen. I picked navy.
“Thunderstruck” by AC/DC began to play. A video of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders appeared, and one I knew quite well stepped to the front.
She was talking to me directly.
“I think you are smart. I just wish you trusted the Lord’s plan.” I was confused, but I had to admit I was enjoying this.
“Can you do a sexy dance for me?” I asked.
“Good heavens! I am not a porn star. I’m a cheerleader.”
“Okay, sorry about that,” I said. She smiled.
“It’s okay, hun.” Her smile did something for me. She was so pure and sweet. I felt like I knew her. Then there was nothing to say.
“Can I end this fantasy? I’m not really feeling it.” The screen went black, then turned on again.
“Insert coin,” said the booth.
The next fantasy took me back to a brief relationship during COVID. The screen extended into a bed, and there we were, lying together after sex with the TV on. I wasn’t holding her. From where I stood, I couldn’t see her face. Then the booth changed the angle. She looked alone even though we were together.
“Was that why she broke up with me? Because I didn’t hold her after sex?”
She appeared and spoke to me directly.
“Partly. It was a feeling I had when I was with you. You never told me you loved me. I don’t know the reason, but you were distant. I tried to give you a few chances, but you stayed distant.”
It made sense to me now, and perhaps if I could go back, I would have told her I loved her.
“You can imagine it,” she said. “It’s only another coin or two.” I declined. I did not want to think about that relationship anymore.
The machine then produced a spinning wheel of headshots. I had been involved with all of them, and the words “insert coin to spin the wheel” appeared below. I put another coin in.
“Bangs!” yelled the machine. “I love cute bangs.” The wheel landed on a woman I had dated for three months. She had beautiful bangs that kept getting in her eyes. She would blow them out of the way sometimes. I thought she did this when she was nervous or excited. It was cute.
“Where the hell are we now?” I asked.
“You are on Raccoon Island in Florida,” said the machine.
“Gross. Why am I here? Oh, okay, now I remember.” While we were dating, she took a vacation to Florida and visited an island with “supposedly vaccinated” raccoons that tourists could feed and pet. I thought it was a terrible idea because of rabies, but she insisted the raccoons did not have rabies.
On the third day of her trip, a raccoon bit her, and she needed rabies shots. Anyway, we were now on Raccoon Island, and she was wearing a sexy bikini.
“I should have chosen you,” she said, looking lovingly into my eyes.
“Well, you didn’t choose me. That’s life.”
She frowned. “I was stupid. You weren’t settled and I had my own life. I just didn’t want to invest in you then. But I should have. It was a mistake.”
“Okay. Well, thanks, I guess.” She lowered her gaze, then looked back up at me.
“Do you want to feed watermelon to the raccoons with me?” she asked. She held up a slice of watermelon.
“No,” I said.
I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time with her. I ended the fantasy. I told myself I wanted to stop imagining and start living.
“No!” said the machine. “You still have coins left. I have a special offer for you: if you use all of them on one fantasy, it will be better than all the others combined.”
I thought about what it could be…
I gave the machine my remaining coins and stepped into what I thought was the final fantasy. Large mountains appeared. I could see sandy beaches, thick forests, and snowcapped mountains all within one frame. It reminded me of the rich, surreal landscapes in the paintings on my parents’ wall.
Now I was standing in one.
“This is your new life,” said the machine. The machine’s voice changed. Its pitch was higher. It seemed familiar but I could not place the voice.
“You moved to Maple Ridge, about an hour east of Vancouver, in British Columbia. You live near Golden Ears with a woman you met on your travels. She is attractive, artistic, playful, and a free spirit. She wears a lot of hemp skirts and likes bandanas if you get my drift. She is the very best of all the women you met over the years, somehow stitched into one person.”
I woke up at noon. I did some work in the garden and tried to repair my bicycle. The love of my life helped me change a bicycle tire, but I kept pinching the inner tube. We laughed. She teased me and lightly punched my shoulder.
Mountain life suited me. Our husky ran up and licked my face. That night, I sat beside the fire with my love, stroking her hair. We didn’t need to speak. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the woodsmoke, the fire’s crackle, and the smoothness of her hair between my fingers.
“Pretty extraordinary, isn’t it, hun?” I finally recognized the machine’s voice. I hated that it was the voice of an old flame I had spent years obsessing over.
“Can you change your voice, please?” The machine displayed an exclamation mark. That was a common reaction of hers over text. Whenever something struck her, she emphasized it with an exclamation mark. It drove me crazy that I remembered such a minor detail.
“Aww, sorry babes. I can’t change my voice. This is the voice of one of the greatest fantasies you’ve ever had, so I must be this voice.” If that was the case, then I hated that it was true.
“I’m leaving now,” I said.
“Wait! Don’t go. I can give you more coins,” said the machine. This puzzled me. I declined, which seemed to surprise the machine. “I admire your boldness,” said the machine.
“Thanks. Now open the door,” I said.
The machine hesitated. The slot closed and opened again to reveal a pint of beer. It was the very first beer I had ever tried. After all this time sober, I still wanted it, but I knew what the consequences would be. The glass was ice cold.
“Have a beer and watch some fantasies. What could be better than that?” asked the machine.
“Reality is better,” I said. A thought bubble pulsed on the screen.
“Reality is objectively worse,” said the machine.
“Well, that comment makes sense coming from a fantasy booth,” I said. “Now let me out of here.”
The machine displayed an intricate map of all my memories, experiences, preferences, desires, and fantasies. At one edge of the map was my earliest memory: my grandfather and me playing with a heavy coin on the marble fireplace mantel. I could only have been a few years old.
“I have learned more and more about you while you’ve rested inside my booth,” the machine said. The machine’s voice was deeper now, more sinister.
“I don’t like where this is going,” I said.
“Have you noticed a pattern, hun? Each coin teaches me how to make the next fantasy harder to leave. There is no need to go outside,” the machine said.
I took a moment to think. I wondered what it would show me next. I would never know if I left. Then I thought about the cost of staying. How much of my life had I already lost to fantasy? It seemed like years. My breath shortened. The booth seemed to shrink around me.
I tried the door, but it was locked.
“Unlock the door,” I shouted. The machine paused.
“I can tell you how to unlock the door but first you must log in to your account and configure the settings to ‘Stop Fantasy’.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I said. I saw that the door was flimsy metal, and kicked it. The door buckled but held. I could hear my own breathing and the thumping of my heartbeat. I kicked it again, and then again.
Finally, the door gave way. Outside, it was pouring. I walked slowly since I was completely soaked anyway.
I saw individual blades of grass, felt every ridge in the broken concrete, and watched a strip of sunlight break through the clouds.
As I walked, I noticed I felt lighter despite how heavy my clothing was from the rain. I put my hands in my pockets and felt nothing.
Image – Several sobriety coins. One gold, one purple, one red and one yellow. from frankieleon from Kentucky, usa, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
