Everyone wants a thing. Bad.

It was an efficient thing. Built to last. Strong. Could do anything. And so, with these traits, it was everything the human body was not. By the standards of most living things, humans’ threshold for time without food and water is remarkably small. We can’t do anything and we are unable to go long doing nothing. On his seventh day waiting for the thing, Mark’s body began to shut down. There was hope, to be sure; he wasn’t last in line, but certainly wasn’t first either; four blocks from the store to be exact, in a line that stretched for eight.

A thing is worth the wait!

It was coming. When? Who knows, but soon. Why couldn’t it be here now? Stocking problems, but things are better when you wait, right? Cathy was less lucky than Mark, she was standing on the seventh block. Every evening around eight clock when the sun was very low but not yet gone, she could swear, was positive, that a large crate was sitting next to the door, a large crate filled with the thing. Why weren’t they opening it, yet? They probably needed special crate-opening experts.

Jeremy was the third person in line and had been here for a week and half; starving yes, for only during the early hours did the makers of the thing hand out water and candy; now all he had was an empty bottle whose dry opening he would mutilate with his teeth whenever he felt unbreaably hungry.

It was the next day, around noon, when the first reports of people passing out reached the local news.

“People Passing out for a Thing!”

The line then grew to ten blocks. Then twelve.