You’re at a restaurant, mall, airport — just about any place where people find themselves with a little time on their hands — and there they are: the smartphones, with their owners hunched over them.What if you could use those minutes to sample a little literature instead?

Little is the operative word for the Short Story Dispenser that the West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority has installed in Subculture Coffee at 509 Clematis St. Plans call for placing two more dispensers this summer at to-be-announced downtown locations.

Press a button labeled 1, 3 or 5 and a short story pops out that takes one, three or five minutes to read, depending on length. It’s free and you never know what you’ll get, as the stories are dispensed randomly.If you’re a writer, the dispenser might become an outlet for your work, as Short Edition, the company that supplies the dispensers and their content, hopes to open submissions to English-speaking writers early next year. The DDA plans to solicit stories from local writers.

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