Fanta Miner (Based heavily on Fantomina by Eliza Haywood)

A young coquettish Vimto can of great figure, spirit and birth found herself one night in the drinks aisle at the local co-op. Seated on the higher shelf she had the advantage of being able to look down on the walkway below and observe the actions of the customers who would walk by. In particular she could not help but observe the actions of a certain young man called Nigel, whose pock-marked face and nerdy posture particularly caught her eye. He seemed to be a man of some considerably discriminating taste, as his trips always terminated in the acquisition of a can of popular carbonated orange drink. Thinking him to her liking, she decided one night to adopt the guise of one of these popular carbonated orange drinks and sat on the appropriate shelf, somewhat forward from the others in the hope that young Nigel might pass and take an interest in her.

  On the first night Nigel did not enter the locale of the drinks aisle, distracted as he was in discussing the latest Warhammer additions with a few of his geekier companions. Caught alone on the second night however he easily succumbed to the young can’s charms and she was taken to his home, under her guise as Fanta Orange. Confined to his bedroom, watching Star Trek, he opened his rucksack and pulled her from the comforting folds of his spare hoody. Our heroine was nervous now, she tried intimating to him that she was formed of un-recycled steel and had never been opened before. Though she was interested in pursuing a course of intimacy with this young man she was not sure whether she was ready to lose her innocence just yet. Such was his thirst for her however, that even had he known her true nature he would have probably drank her contents regardless of their flavour. To wit, she was undone and scorned him with harsh language the likes of which would never be fit to disclose in public. Nevertheless though he had used her to fulfil his own passions, he entreated her with delicate words that soothed her fury and he promised to recycle her in the appropriate green bin on his way to work the next day.

  He kept his word, and many times she was recycled and refilled with Vimto, where she would then have to re-disguise herself as a can of the popular carbonated orange drink. And he would purchase her again and they would retire to his abode where they were able to drink their fill of one another. But Nigel varied not so little from his sex as to be able to prolong desire, to any great length after repeated consumption; and she discovered from her high vantage point that Nigel began to grow weary of her section of the drinks aisle, as he started throwing sidelong glances at the cans of the same brand but different flavour. She wisely considered that complaining or imploring with Nigel would only drive him away, so once again she utilised her skills of disguise: lightening her complexion and adopting a yellow hue she became Fanta Lemon. So on the next evening when Nigel entered the co-op, she once again sat forward from all of the other cans. Not seeing his long-term lover to hand, Nigel was able to slip his new-found conquest in to his shopping basket and steal back to his house without feeling guilty. Ah, had he known that his infidelity was with the can he had drunk from before how he might have wished for the skies to fall on his head, but such was his craving that the illusion of a new conquest blotted all apparent similarity from his mind.

  It was not long however before the charms of Fanta Lemon begin to dim for him too. Our plucky young Vimto can, though young, was easily attuned to the whims of her lover, and made herself a new disguise, that of Fanta Strawberry.  Each new disguise, reinvigorated his thirst for her in the main, but there are only so many flavours that can be derived from that popular carbonated orange drink we all know so well. After Nigel grew tired of Fanta Apple, the Vimto can decided she must hedge her bets with one final bid to secure her lover’s faithfulness.  Stripping herself of all graphic design, she placed herself on a bare shelf in the drinks aisle one night. As Nigel bought his microwave dinner that evening he spied her on a shelf, naked but for a black question mark that barely covered her aluminium cylindrical form. Overcome with curiosity, Nigel attempted to buy her immediately. However, her lack of a bar code made purchase impossible, so in a fit of pure passion he threw down his microwave dinner and ran from the store, pursued by the furious co-op staff in their turquoise and purple chequered shirts. Held in hot pursuit by the co-op attendants, Nigel ran into the kids play park in the ever-growing darkness and secreted himself inside one of the tunnel slides.

  ‘My dear, enigmatic, mystery can, even if I have to sacrifice my life, I shall defend you against all adversaries’ he said, panting heavily.

  With his teeth he opened her ring pull. The click and hiss of the can opening alerted the listening co-op attendants and they pounced on him mid-gulp, dragging him out of the slide by his feet. He was true to his word however and engaged the co-op shelf stackers in mortal combat. In the struggle he dropped his precious can in an attempt to beat off his aggressors. Just when he thought he was gaining ground, he looked at his new beloved and froze. As he had dropped her she had fallen on her side and her contents were spilling liberally on the soft, rubber play park flooring. Even in the fading light he could see it was Vimto.

  ‘No, it can’t be Vimto’ he said ‘I’m sure I would‘ve-’

 He stopped, and then it hit him: How every soft drink he had purchased for the last three months had tasted exactly the same, but how in his lustful state he had ignored the flavour and only wanted the carbonated, sugary goodness inside. All the flavours of popular carbonated fruit-flavoured drink he had consumed had all had the same Vimtoey taste. He hadn’t been drinking Fanta at all. Under the burden of the truth, his legs gave way and he was brought to his knees. He flung his arms skyward, and cried out to the Heavens:

  ‘Whhyyyy?! How could this have happened?! I don’t even like Vimto!!!’

  When the police arrived, the bruised co-op attendants were standing a respectful distance from the bitterly sobbing man who lay in a heap at the foot of the slide. He didn’t struggle as they put him in the back of the car and drove him away. The Vimto can continued to lie there till morning when a conscientious mother, fearing for the safety of her child, deposited our heroine in one of the park rubbish bins, the contents of which were later taken to a landfill site in Chepstow where she remained till she finally decomposed several hundred years later.

THE END