[ WP ] `` I 'm sorry , but the thing you were looking for is sold out . ''

“ I ’ m sorry, but the thing you were looking for is sold out. ” The government agent on the other end of the phone had said the sentence softly, yet firmly. She said nothing more, careful not to waste her resources to reason with a desperate, dying man. 
 
 It couldn ’ t be. There was just no way. When the product first emerged on the market, it was a satire. I purchased a few cans, as did all my friends. We were amused. Who knew, that it would actually catch on. It remained on sale, spreading, like wildfire. People purchased the cans as jokes, to show their friends, to silently protest. The government neither condemned nor encouraged them initially. It knew that attacking the product would give it power. 
 
 As time went on, the pollution spread. Smog that could previously be blocked out by mere masks could now permeate even the best clothing. A fifteen minute walk outside required a ten minute shower to scrub out the dirt and grime. Then the next winter came, a colder one than most. The polar vortex, a term so foreign just half a decade before, was swinging around again. Temperatures dropped continuously, and the heaters in the large city of 25 million burned furiously. After several days, the sun, which during the best of days shredded a yellow, sickly light, was completely covered up by smog. Yet the sky did not clear. The smog would not lift. 
 
 That ’ s when we realized it was no longer a joke. The product was no longer sold in isolated cans anymore. It was sold in huge 4L jugs, even though that was not nearly enough. The government declared martial law. The only vehicles allowed on the road now transported the product, HA! They sold them at exorbitant prices, but it wasn ’ t entirely their fault. There was so little of it, and so many people. 
 
 Out of hopelessness I turned to my safe. My apartment, new only several years ago, had walls blackened from dirt. I coughed, creating an explosion of dust, setting off a chain reaction. I finally calmed down a half minute later, and unlocked the metal box. 
 
 The lock finally ticked open between my fumbling fingers. I stared into the box like a starving man. The interior of the box was filled to the brim with metal containers. The same ones I had purchased a dozen years ago. 
 
 Canned air. 

