The Cigarette Machine from God / June 24 2007
Audrey and I have just passed a very strange sight indeed: Lying in a yellow rubbish skip by the side of the road was a big, fat and fully-intact cigarette vending machine.
(I enjoy rooting through the contents of roadside skips when no one is around. One can frequently find various discarded items that can potentially be recycled and turned into something completely new and useful. With a little creative care and attention, what was once a grimy old bedside cabinet or bookcase or footwear receptacle can sometimes be variously manipulated, reassembled and refinished and ultimately transformed into something unexpected and chic. It is surprisingly easy to fashion these forgotten and abandoned bits and pieces into some new and original objet d’art, or into a stylish and quirky piece of furniture for the city apartments of young investment bankers and urbane bachelors. Most skips to be found around here closely resemble the general contents of my own house as they are practically full to the brim with all kinds of highly valuable, worthless crap.)
This particular Sunday-morning skip was being filled by a large and dirty, una-browed gorilla of a man who looked so powerful and aggressive, I imagined that he might very well have had muscles in his spit. He was emptying a derelict, ex-miner’s cottage on one of the roads that leads out of the village and up towards the old colliery.
Why such a thing as what appeared to be a fully-functioning cigarette machine should find its way inside a previously domestic and cosy little dwelling on Water Lane is anybody’s guess. I was intrigued enough to have a closer inspection as soon as the man disappeared again inside the dark interstices of the gloomy little house.
On the front of the machine, in glossy red and gold embossed lettering, was the inviting legend: Dunhill – Taste the Quality. There were still one or two full packets of various brands sitting safely inside their metal chutes that could be seen through the glass panel on the front.
I began to daydream momentarily as I was standing there and I had some rather fanciful notions occur to me as to from where the machine could actually have come . . .
Perhaps it did not originate from inside the small terraced cottage at all and had in fact fallen from a passing jumbo jet full of darts players and whippet-fanciers en-route to Las Vegas. Or possibly it had been placed there by the local anti-smoking lobby by way of a warning or as an ironic comment on modern life. More likely still, I seriously have my suspicions that it was in actual fact a cleverly disguised spaceship belonging to some malevolent alien species on a reconnaissance mission to our planet as part of their preparations for a full-scale invasion of the Earth.
Before we went on our way, I noticed that someone had lovingly placed, as a spontaneous and poignant afterthought, a naked and headless G.I. Joe in the metal delivery receptacle of the machine. ‘What do you suppose he is doing there, Audrey?’ I asked my little dog.
‘Maybe he’s desperate for a fag,’ she barked.
Filed under Counterculture / English Village Life / Thoughts / Writing
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One comment on “The Cigarette Machine from God”
Jo Beaufoix / June 24th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Blooming headless Ken’s. They get everywhere.
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