The Pause That Opresses

No one knows when or how the giant Coca-Cola machine arrived in Hallowood. It just appeared one sunny spring morning behind Earl's Filling Station outside of town. Although it drew quite the crowd of gawkers for the first few days, most people round here just came to accept it as a conversation piece. Something to put on the sightseeing brochures and postcards at the post office. We didn't see much point in making a fuss, what with us being rather tolerant folk in these parts. In fact, Earl kinda liked the shade it provided against the afternoon sun and how it prevented cars from rolling out of his lot and down the steep cliff just beyond his service bays.

The first sign of trouble occurred when some of the boys from the high school decided to pull an end-of-the-school-year prank and climb the soda pop machine. That would've been innocent enough, but then they got bold and tried to get a Coke out by shoving a hubcap from Mr. Granger's Buick in the coin slot and pulling on the lever. Wellsir, a green bottle about the size of the Gas & Electric Building downtown tumbled out of that red box and rolled right on down that steep cliff. Damn near took out the overpass on Route 12 and didn't stop rolling 'til it hit Bessie McCoy's barn. All that churned up soda blasted the cap clean off and through the trunk of a 200-year-old maple tree. The barn was completely covered in sticky liquid that's been drawing flies ever since. The cows still won't give milk.

Then the elf-head came. Seems this elf whatchamawhoozits was trapped in the bottle for a hundred years and now threatens to drown us in Coca-Cola if we don't obey his every command. A few of us tried to escape, but the cars and buses were cut off by the green ooze which crept in and sealed off the town. Now we must dance and sing and tell the elf how much we like his hair or he'll drop his giant bottle of Coke on us.

If anyone out there can hear me, dear God, send help!