00:00The vending machine in the basement sells things no one ever stocked.
00:04I learned that last Tuesday, when it gave me a child's retainer instead of my chips.
00:11I worked the night shift at Halden Insurance, and that machine has sat in the basement since the building was
00:17new.
00:18Nobody restocks it, and nobody ever has to.
00:21The retainer was small and pink. Still damp.
00:25I set it on top of the machine and told myself the vendor had mixed up the coils.
00:31The next night, a gold wedding ring, dated 1987.
00:37Then a house key, with a paper tag in a child's handwriting that read,
00:41In case I get lost.
00:44I taped a list to the side of the machine.
00:47A bus pass, a single baby shoe, a library card with a name I knew from the news.
00:54A girl who never came home.
00:57Every item belonged to someone missing.
01:00I checked.
01:01The retainer matched a boy gone two years.
01:04The ring a bride from Ohio.
01:06The key that little girl.
01:09All of them.
01:10Gone.
01:12I swore I would stop.
01:14But the machine knew my dollar bills by then.
01:17On Friday, it dropped something that made my hands shake.
01:21My own office badge.
01:24Lost last month.
01:26It was scratched exactly where mine was scratched.
01:30Only I had never lost mine.
01:32It was still clipped to my belt.
01:34Warm.
01:35And now there were two of them.
01:38I fed it my last dollar and pressed the only button still lit.
01:42It hummed and shuddered, and something fell with a heavy final sound.
01:46My wallet.
01:48My face.
01:50My name.
01:52Then it clicked one last time, and a plastic name tag slid down.
01:57The kind they give new hires.
01:59My name, spelled right, and underneath, in a child's handwriting, in case he gets lost.
02:06The kind they give new hires.
02:06The kind they give new hires.
