Crushing It

Munni woke on the floor of the most pristine bathroom she’d ever been in. Everything was white or silver or glass, and she’d never been here before. If one were to wake up on a bathroom floor and not remember why, the most likely answer was alcohol. But Munni had given up drinking last year. 2018 had been a blessing, and one day she just looked at the wine in her fridge and decided that she didn’t need it anymore. This far into 2019, she hasn’t had a drop of alcohol, and she even found another outlet. In her opinion, it was healthier.

But now, here...her lack of a drinking habit made her presence on this strange, sparkly white bathroom floor all the more unsettling.

Sitting up, she further noted the absence of a headache and the relative ease of her gut. She didn’t even feel sleepy or groggy. In fact, she felt like she’d just finished an hour of yoga. She sprung into standing position like she was made of rubber and springs.

And then she heard it. It came from the other side of the ornate silver double doors that undoubtedly led out of the bathroom. 

The sound grounded her, put her at ease, and yet it was out of place here. That particular sound belonged in restaurant kitchens and busy coffee shops, not a house like this. The satisfying crinkle—crunch-thud that took all the stress out of her in one packed punch sounded again, sending a zing of longing through her. To be the cause of that sound was a transforming experience that never got old and always served as a cure-all, both for her and for her coworkers. And she heard it again. And again! But...how could there be so many, in such quick succession?? Where in the Siren’s name was she?

“Munni?” an unfamiliar voice called her name from the other side of the door, which glimmered red as the woman spoke. Since when did doors do that?

“Um. Yes?” The door flashed yellow.

“Oh, delightful!” the woman exclaimed. A flash of green. “We’ve been waiting for you! Dill, she’s here!” A yellow blink.

Now the panic set in. The woman sounded kind, but she and this Dill had somehow brought Munni to this unknown place, so could they possibly be trustworthy? And why did they want her? She was just an underpaid barista at Siren’s Rule Coffee. She had fewer than 200 followers on her Instagram account. She had five friends outside of work. That was hardly someone strangers would be excited about. 

But that kkkk-thomp. It sent shivers through her, almost as though she were an addict, although she was certainly not. Somehow, it made Munni trust the unfamiliar voices on the other side of the door, so, against her better judgment, she turned the crystalline glass knob.

The first thing she should have focused on was the woman who’d spoken to her through the door. The woman stood right in front of Munni, smiling wildly, obviously expecting her to say something. But Munni was immediately captivated by what lined the wall-to-wall shelves opposite her. They stood in a showroom-style room of marble floors and minimal furniture, but what was being “shown” was puzzling, confusing, and spectacular.

“Speechless, darling?” The woman said with a performative laugh. “Dill, she’s speechless! Dill?”

Dill was less interested in their mysteriously-acquired guest and more interested in the thing in his hands. So was Munni. When he brought his hands to either side of the object and punched them together... Munni’s eyes and ears finally connected the source of the crinkle-thud she’d heard while inside the bathroom. It came from the things that lined these walls. It came from the thing she’d used to replace alcohol.

These people—Dill and the excitable woman—had invented some kind of crushable and re-inflating milk jug.

Munni could only stare. 

And stare. And she might even be salivating. And staring. Until the woman’s unbalanced laugh startled Munni back to herself.

“What,” Munni said. “Is that?” 

Another ha ha ha! “Why, it’s the MUNNI, darling!” The woman spoke with such delight, as though her explanation was obvious and complete. 

Then, Dill spoke his first words since Munni’s arrival, which were simply, “The MUNNI!”, and then he proceeded to crush the marvelous object in his hands again. And it re-inflated, again.

“This is our home,” the lady said pleasantly, reminding Munni of a PR woman. “And my sincerest apologies… my name is Glinda, and this is my brother, Dill.” It wasn’t the pleasantries but rather her apparent kidnapping that Munni hoped they would apologize for. (Also, Glinda? Like, the good witch?) “My parents are arduous fans of Wicked,” she confirmed. Alright, then. So… “Dill.” Doctor Dillamond? Their parents named him after a goat? Munni held back a smirk.

“Well,” Glinda said after Munni remained silent. “What do you think?” She spread her arms toward the shelves of different colored “MUNNIs.”

Munni pinched herself. If this were a dream, she needed to wake up. She’d never seen something so horrifying and fantastical at the same time, and she didn’t want to witness any more, lest she wake up hating her reality and constantly daydreaming of this.

Dill stood up and walked to a shelf. He picked a magenta MUNNI from the collection and handed it to her. “Welcome to 2030. Crush your worries away with the MUNNI!” Munni took the lightweight plastic jug from Dill and just held it. Dill groaned again. “Glinda, I told you this was a bad idea.”

“No such thing!” Glinda said brightly. “She’s just adjusting. Go ahead, darling,” she said to Munni. Her eyes glinted with an alarming intrigue. “Crush it! That’s our slogan, by the way.” Munni rolled her eyes at that.

She ran her hands over the textured plastic surface of the milk-jug toy. It was shaped just like the gallons she was used to pouring (and crushing) at Big Name Coffee Shop. The only difference; the jug didn’t have a cap. In its place was a filter for which the MUNNI to pull in air after being compressed. There was also a handle to simulate the authentic feel of holding an empty milk jug, but this one had a protective rubber cushion to prevent the user from smashing their fingers along with the jug. 

She held in her hands the perfect object ever to exist.

Except it didn’t exist.

Because time travel wasn’t real.

Time travel would definitely take more than a decade to invent, and if it didn’t exist in 2019, it didn’t exist in 2030.

This wasn’t 2030.

This was just a dream.

Instead of crushing the jug—although she itched to, so, so badly—she pinched herself again.

Dill had put his own MUNNI down and was watching her. “Glinda,” he chastised his sister again. “She still thinks she’s dreaming.”

On a lark, Munni tapped her heels together three times, and thought “There’s no place like home.” You know, since this dream already had Oz vibes.

This just made both siblings burst out into laughter.

“Glinda!” Dill wheezed between bouts of laughter. “Do you remember how often you did that during COVID-19?”

“Well, you copied me during COVID-19-Tau,” Glinda countered, clutching her sides. “Although I didn’t know where you thought you’d end up. We didn’t have time travel until COVID-19-Gamma.”

“Oh my goodness,” Dill clutched his side. He tapped his own heels together. “There’s no place like home!” He shouted.

“There’s no place like home!” Glinda echoed, her head tilted to the ceiling and a manic glee in her eyes.

“COVID what?” asked Munni.

This just sprung another round of laughter from the two. She thought she heard Dill wheeze, “She doesn’t know about the pandemic.” This was the point at which reality started breaking, right? When everything was out of place, surely it was time to wake up. This was a good sign.

Amid the siblings’ chaotic laughter, something small rolled into the room. Munni’s first thought was “BB-8” from Star Wars because her mind was just that confused. But when she actually looked at the thing, she saw that it really was some kind of robot. It was about two feet tall, moved on one large wheel, and—Munni blinked—it was dressed in a flying monkey costume. From The Wizard of Oz. Or “Wicked.” It even had a little cylindrical hat. 

It suddenly occurred to Munni that her own brain could not possibly conjure up something so bizarre. 

The milk jugs, yes. The beautiful bathroom, sure, since she’d recently watched a lot of doctor’s-office-waiting-room HGTV. She could also see the parallel between her own name and Glinda’s. Her own mother was enamored with an old Bollywood movie featuring a little girl named Munni. That’s kind of the same as naming your kid after the glittery good witch. And imagining her own kidnapping, yes, of course, doesn’t everyone worry about that? 

But she’d felt a strong certainty that her brain was incapable of conjuring a generally unimpressive-looking robot in a frankly horrendous costume. If she wasn’t dreaming this up... Her stomach felt queasy.

The little thing boop-bopped a few times, lighting up red like the bathroom door had done, and finally got the siblings’ attention.

“Oh, Nikko,” Glinda said breathlessly, a steadying hand on her stomach. “Our guest is here, look!”

Nikko, the robot, blinked green once as if to say, “Obviously.” It then presented a series of colors and beep-boops that obviously meant something to Dill because the man said to Glinda, “This is why we need Nikko around. He has such brilliant ideas.”

“I have brilliant ideas!” Glinda protested.

“Sensible brilliant ideas,” Dill amended, resulting in a pout from his sister.

“I don’t think I want to be a part of another of your brilliant ideas...” Munni piped up.

“It’s not our idea!” Dill said. “It’s Nikko’s.”

“Didn’t you, uh, make Nikko?”

“Technicalities,” Dill said brightly. “Come with me!” He turned to leave the room.

“Why do you have a toy named after me?” Munni sidestepped, and Dill reluctantly turned to face her. He didn’t seem to have an answer for her right away.

“You have a beautiful name,” Glinda supplied in her brother’s silence.

Munni put the magenta MUNNI back on the shelf and planted herself in a bright green armchair. She crossed her arms, hoping it didn’t make her look like a brat, and pushed away the thought that this was the most comfortable thing her butt had ever sat in. “I think it’s a little weird that you don’t want to explain. Masterminds usually love to talk.”

Glinda giggled excessively. “Darling, we’re no masterminds. That title falls on you.”

“But how the fuck do you know who I am?”

“Language!” Glinda gasped, just as Dill burst out, “We were your customers!” 

Huh? “My...customers?”

Dill beamed. “At Siren’s Rule Coffee!”

Munni shook her head. “I would remember a Glinda. And there could have been several different Dill’s...”

Dill waved his hand dismissively. “Eh, we were stupid kids back then. We used coffee shop names. Vicki and Randy. Remember now?”

Ugh, did she remember them, alright. The two of them had hyper-specific drink orders and were the type to watch the barista make their drink in case anything was done incorrectly. They were almost always a source of milk-jug-crushing frustration from Munni or her coworkers, so...so they must have seen that particular anger-management routine nearly every time they visited...

“But, you, but Vandy and Ricki are college kids. No offense, but...”

“2030, remember?” Glinda said.

“Fuck.” If Munni weren’t already sitting, she might have swayed on her feet. “You’re really Vandy and Ricki? I-in the future. I’m in the future?”

“Yes, darling,” Glinda/Ricki said. “And let me tell you, you might not want to go back to your time. The 2020s were not a good decade.”

“Uh. But. Time travel isn’t real. There’s no way it could be invented in a decade.”

“Kid,” said Dill/Vandy. “Just accept the miracle and move on. There are things we want to show you.”

“Wait!” Munni’s eyes found the magenta milk jug she’d set down earlier. “Can I...?”

“YES!” The siblings agreed at once.

Tossing them a wary look, Munni went over to pick up the plastic toy. Like she’d done earlier, she ran her hands over the surface, but this time, she felt transported back to the floor of Siren’s Rule Coffee. She smelled the phantom auras of ground coffee beans and sweet syrups. She heard the echoes of shouting coworkers and exchanged pleasantries. She could so clearly imagine herself back there because the thing she held—the “MUNNI” felt so much like the real thing that she…that she just had to...

Her hands found their way to either side of the MUNNI. her right hand was wrapped around the cushioned rubber handle. 

She brought her left hand out, and she punched.

The release.

The sound.

The dent.

The euphoria.

Nothing could compare. Nothing except the next punch. And the next one. And every crinkle and smash that followed.

Finally, she saw it.

The MUNNI could change lives. It was perfect. And it all started with her.