Gummy Pigs: A Short Story

Rags transformed into gowns, pumpkins into carriages, and mice into chauffeurs—people often associate magic with impossible grandeur and grand impossibilities. They associate it with fantasy. But magic lingers. It hides in the unexpected: in my phone that never breaks (despite being run over, submerged, and frozen), in my friend’s dog that always manages to raid the refrigerator, and in my uncle who always parallel parks in two moves. People who don’t believe in magic have yet to encounter it. They have yet to meet Ata.
Like his friends, Ata laced sentences with expletives, mocked Hitler, and watched an obscene amount of porn. But underneath the surface rested magic. Always getting extra gummy worm bags from the vending machine—only gummy worms—revealed his magic. Purchasing chips or soda would yield the expected quantity, but every time he punched in the code for gummy worms, two would tumble out. The anomaly intrigued us. We fished out change and took turns purchasing gummy worms. Only for Ata would two come out. $20 and a few sick stomachs later, we emptied the vending machine of its gummy worms and moved onto the next one. Same story—it was as if the gelatin gods anointed Ata as their oracle. “Buy all the gummy worms,” they commanded. And we did.
Strangers labeled us the Cestoda Cult after parasitic
We calculated probabilities, simulated models, and performed mathematical wizardry. My friends dismissed Ata’s talent as chance. “The vending machine glitched. That specific row broke. It’s a coincidence.” Still, I clutched onto my theory of magic. Chance could not explain why every vending machine glitched. Chance could not explain why Ata, and only Ata, received the double drops. Chance could not explain why we wasted $200 on candy we didn’t want, and chance could not spark a witch-hunt for answers (and gummy worms). Serendipity requires luck, but only magic