★ THE SEVENTH COIL ★

a community devotion — BURSTIES™ COSMIC RANCH — vended 1994 to 2001 — sixty-five cents
ROW C IS STILL LIT ··· ROW C IS STILL LIT ··· seven puffs per bag, never six, never eight ··· the orange on the fingers is called THE WASH ··· do not lick it off, let it wear off ··· ROW C IS STILL LIT ···

the console at Ridgeline Sport Center

GATE ONE — THE FLOOR OF THE MACHINE
Stand close. Ask for one. Wait for the coil to finish turning before reaching in — the reaching is not the receiving.
▲ ▼ climb or descend the gates  ·  SPACE ask the coil to turn
bags released through this terminal: 0

userinfo · the_seventh_coil

a red and black vending machine glowing in a dark corridor, row C at eye level members: 41   watchers: 118   founded: 14 Apr 2001, nine days after the last case shipped
meets: Tuesdays, 6:40am, north corridor, Ridgeline Sport Center, machine 4

interests (14): aftertaste, breath work, coil c7, corn plenum, dot matrices, glow, groundskeepers, hum, night janitors, ranch dust, seven, the wash, warm bags, waiting

A bag of BURSTIES™ Cosmic Ranch weighed 1.1 ounces and contained, without exception, seven puffs of extruded corn, dusted in a buttermilk-onion powder the company called Cosmic and the rest of us call The Wash. Production ended without announcement in March 2001. No successor exists. What follows is kept freely, by many hands, in the plural voice we agreed on.
▸ 6:52 am — coil_hana_r — "the manifest again"
Ray who fills machine 4 arrived at 6:45 with the hand truck and let three of us read the manifest on his clipboard, which is the eleventh Tuesday running. Row C is now pretzel rods, pretzel rods, and a hot cinnamon disc that nobody has ever purchased. Ray says the slot spacing in C7 was cut for a bag 1.1 ounces wide and everything since rattles in it. He does not know why he told us that. We do.

Practice afterward: seven breaths facing the glass, one per gate, palms open at hip height. Nadine wept a little at gate five and was held. Then everyone bought pretzel rods out of respect for Ray, who has a route and a schedule and cannot be made to carry our grief.
mood: attuned  ·  music: the compressor cycling in machine 4  ·  7 comments  ·  reply
▸ 11:14 pm — oldmachine_dev — "what the wash is actually for"
A correction, kindly meant, for the newer members who keep writing that The Wash was "just seasoning." Seasoning is applied to be tasted. The Wash was applied to be carried. Consider: a bag opened at 6:50am left a residue that survived a shower, two classes, and a bus ride, and could be found under the nail at supper. Nothing else sold in that corridor did that. The company sold a flavor. The corridor received a marker. Whoever ate one was findable all day by anyone who knew to look at hands.

Three of us met that way in 1998 without exchanging a word about it. That is the whole doctrine, honestly. The rest is scheduling.
mood: patient  ·  music: none, the hallway is enough  ·  3 comments

comments

nadine_at_gate5 — 6:58 am
Held is a strong word, we were leaning. But thank you. The gate five thing keeps happening because the throat gate is the one that got taken — a snack you can no longer ask for out loud. (reply) (thread)
coil_hana_r — 7:11 am
Leaning, then. Corrected in the log. (reply)
bruce_of_the_north_corridor — 8:02 am
Counted eleven puffs in a bag once, summer camp, 1996. Have never told anybody because of how it would land here. It landed. (reply)
oldmachine_dev — 9:40 am
Eleven is seven and four. Four is a doubled bag seam. Nothing is broken, Bruce. Come Tuesday. (reply)
glassfront_kim — 2:19 pm
Found a full sleeve of eight bags at an estate sale in Kettering, expiry stamped 09 JUN 01, sealed, dry storage, no light. Not for sale, not for eating, not for auction, please stop asking. It sits on the shelf and the room smells faintly of onions when the heat kicks on. That is enough of an afterlife for anything. (reply)

the seven, as recited at the glass

  1. THE FLOOR — the coin drops farther than expected. Let it.
  2. THE TURN — the coil is slower than desire and that is a mercy.
  3. THE HEAT — a bag near the compressor comes out warm. Warm is a gift and not a defect.
  4. THE SEAM — opened from the corner, never torn across, or the seven scatter.
  5. THE ASKING — say the name aloud to somebody, even now, especially now.
  6. THE WASH — worn, not licked. Carried until evening.
  7. THE EMPTY BAG — folded in three and kept in the left pocket until laundry decides.
Recitation takes ninety seconds. Nobody has ever gotten through it in a busy corridor without stopping for someone to pass.