They called him Chief. Nobody knew how old he really was and only a few knew his real name. Some said mid 40’s, others guessed as high as 60. It was hard to tell. He was a compact, strong man. Like most of the crew, his standard outfit was the ship’s issue black and gray jumpsuit, which was baggy everywhere except around his arms and chest where rocky muscle pressed against the rough fabric. A dark blue bandana always covered his graying hair, which would hang past his chin if it weren’t carefully tucked under the grease stained blue fabric.

He seldom spoke in full sentences, preferring grunts and one word answers. On the rare occasion he strung more than one word together in his slow drawl he would leave plenty of space between each word, forcing you to hang impatiently on each syllable as he spewed it out from behind his thick, gray moustache. He was fond of cigars. Not the expensive kind you would find in a temperature controlled walk-in humidor, but the kind you bought in a pack of five from the Indian guy behind the counter at the 24 hour Quick Stop. He was perpetually surrounded by a thick cloud of acrid, cheap tobacco smoke. Because of this most people kept their distance, but he liked it that way. Chief preferred the ships machinery to them anyways. You couldn’t smack someone with a wrench if they were misbehaving, but you could beat on the ancient stratocouplers as much as you wanted. They didn’t mind cigar smoke and they didn’t complain.

Some of the crew though Chief was issued with the ship; built like a machine with the sole purpose of keeping its systems running. He had personal quarters but preferred sleeping on a thin, lumpy mattress stuffed behind the engine room’s large control panel, besides, he only slept well if every one of the ships systems was running smoothly and this old tub kept him up for days on end.

Chief may have disliked many people, but he respected the men under his command. Hard work did not go unnoticed on his watch. Chief always encouraged his men to speak up if they saw a more efficient or better way to complete a task. Once a week he would drag out an old digital projector and play bootlegged movies from when he was a kid on a tarp strung between a few pipes in the engine room. Anyone off duty could pull up an empty condenser crate or lubricant drum and spend a few hours laughing at the grainy old 2D images of men at war firing actual projectiles at each other, or chasing each other in vehicles that ran on round bands of rubber and burned fossil fuels. Chief would just sit in the back of the room, one arm propped against the control panel, chuckling silently to himself and remembering days past.

Often the captain would put him and his men under great pressure to get things fixed or upgraded.

“Time wasted is time lost!”

Chief would bellow, sucking his cigar and loping along the narrow, metal grated passages deep within the ships engine compartments, stopping occasionally to help turn a wrench or hold a flashlight for one of his men. Besides his usual cigar Chief was never seen without his outdated personal communicator. It was always strapped to his belt or jammed into his back pocket, its earpiece stuffed into his left ear. Unlike the rest of the crew he refused the latest neural communication device.

“I don’t want some doctor cuttin’ open my head, stuffin; those electronic doo-dads into my brain. Besides, my old comm. unit does everything I need.”

He would reply any time someone asked him about it. He always chuckled at the younger crew members using their neural communicators, their eyes twitching away, viewing data streamed directly to their optical nerves.

“Yup, just give me an old holographic display any day.”

The engine room’s controls were all old style manual interfaces anyways; touch screens and holographic readouts. The only pure neural interfaces were those on the bridge. They were necessary for quick course corrections and plotting FTL jumps. Chief only entered the bridge when something needed to be repaired. He found the long, dark room packed with silent, motionless officers lying on their neural couches disconcerting. At least the captain maintained one large data screen at the far end. He didn’t much like neural interfaces either, but he also didn’t like cigars. It was on one of these rare visits to the bridge that Chief’s life would take a sharp left turn.

Late one night Chief had just finished repairing one of the fussy stratocouplers when his communicator beeped in his left ear.

“Chief? You there?”

It was the ships Executive Officer, Willy McCloud. Everyone just called him XO.

“We got a problem up here on the bridge. Main control conduit is on the fritz again, can you come up here and take a look at it asap?”

Chief tapped his earpiece, opening up its mic.

“Yeah sure, XO, be right up.” He grabbed his tool bag and headed for the nearest turbolift. It would bring him directly to the bridge. A minute later the lift slid to a halt and its doors opened. Blinding white light seared into the small cabin. Chief dropped his tool bag, shading his eyes with one hand.

“What the…” He breathed, stepping slowly from the lift.

The light was coming from a bright sphere floating in the middle of the bridge. It was about the size of an old basketball hovering two meters off the floor. Chef moved farther into the room, carefully approaching the object.

“XO!” he yelled. Nobody responded and he couldn’t see past the orb to the XO’s station.

“Captain! Anyone!” Still no response.

The normally occupied neural couches nearby were empty, their interface strands tangled and draping to the floor. Chief didn’t know what to do. He had never seen anything like it before. Nothing that small could put out so much light, and heat. He could feel it now as he got close. Pulsating waves of heat radiated from the center of the room, washing over him. Beads of sweat formed below the bandana on his red forehead. For the first time since he entered the room he noticed a frantic beeping in his left ear. It was his comm unit’s hazardous environment alarm. He quickly snatched the unit from his belt. The screen was flashing green. Severe Radation Hazzard Evacuate Immediately it read.

“Shit!” Chief yelled, spinning around. He stumbled back into the turbolift and slapped the panel to close its doors. Nothing happened. He slapped it again, but the screen was dark. It was dead. The temperature was rising every second. Another warning sounded in his ear. This time it was a heat warning. Sweat poured down his face now, soaking into his collar. He was getting light headed. The room was spinning. Chief fell to his knees in front of the control panel, still wearily swiping at it with his slick, sweat covered hands. The beeping from his earpiece began to fade. Soon his vision followed, he was falling, down into a dark pit, faster and faster. He fell to the side now, sprawling out on the floor, halfway out of the lift. A last pinpoint of light left his vision as he slipped into unconsciousness.

“Calvin,” a woman’s voice whispered. “Calvin, wake up.” The voice was close, whispering into his left ear. Warm breath brushed his cheek with each word. A long forgotten, but familiar scent filled his nose; mint and teatree. It was her shampoo. Her. Cindy.

No fucking way. Chief thought. I’m dreaming or something. She’s dead. I cremated her and buried her on the farm and she’s dead.

“Come on Calvin. Open your eyes. I know you’re awake.” The voice said, getting louder and moving in front of him. Something pressed down on him, he sunk down.

A mattress, I’m lying on a bed and now she is on top of me. Oh god. I can feel her. He soft, warm skin against mine. Oh, she’s so warm and smooth. Her breasts, just like I remember them, pressing into me.

Something tickled his face. The wonderful minty teetree scent grew stronger.

Her hair, her fucking curly, dark, beautiful hair!

“Open up, silly,” the voice crooned.

Chief slowly opened his eyes. It felt like he was dragging their lids over sandpaper. A light, skin colored blur surrounded by darkness filled his vision. He blinked a few times until it came into focus. It was Cindy’s face. Cindy was alive. She was alive and on top of him.

Never Watch a Documentary on Black Holes With an Unstable Mind

Adrian fumbled through his jacket pockets to find his keys, past the mounds used tissues and gum rappers which he hastily tossed out onto the cement.  Walking to his car, he could feel the tip of his nose and his cheeks hardening from the bitter cold air.  Soon they would turn numb. Everything was numb. He could feel the Sam Adams bottle opener key chain, so he assumed the keys were attached to them, where they were when he put them in his pocket when walking into work that morning.

The alarm clock went off at 5:45 a.m., the monotonous artificial beeping marked a new day.  He once wondered if the rising sun marked a new day, or was it a new day when you wanted it to be. Setting an alarm made time controllable, contained, fixed.  If a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it still make a sound? That kind of shit. Well, that led him to feel like we all live in our separate universes where sound, color, sensory stimulation, and time are all completely different.  People even taste food differently. He knew this as scientific fact because in his 11^th grade chemistry class they did an experiment on genealogy and traits, some kids had ear lobs attached to the sides of head and some kids couldn’t taste bitterness on the tip of their tongue.   Adrian could taste bitterness on the tip his tongue, had fat hitch hiker thumbs, and a widows peak.  After he got out of work he picked up where his train of thought left off in the morning. 

The Beatles “Across the Universe” came on the radio as he turned the key to the ignition, “Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither while they pass. They slip away across the universe. Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind, possessing and caressing me. Jai guru deva om .Nothing's gonna change my world. Nothing's gonna change my world. Nothing's gonna change my world. Nothing's gonna change my world..”

The car was just starting to heat up. The numbness in his nose and fingers were gradually replaced with a sensation of tingling warmth.  His eyes kept to the road, staring vacantly as the song droned in his ears.  Adrian felt that the road beyond his vision wasn’t always there.  Who’s to say that it was?  At any time really, the road could stop being there- could cease existing.  He and his 2005 Toyota Camry could be the inhabitants of a new dimension that didn’t involve cell phone bills, mortgages, grocery shopping, the flu, shitty bosses, dying fathers, whiney girlfriends, and war. No feelings or regret or happiness. But reality promised that the road would continue to be under the tires when he turned the corner.  He pulled up to his apartment on Eighth Street across from Gerard’s Cleaners (Adrian made frequent stops there. The owner, Zia, had the nicest bong that she bought over in India.  After using the bong he would hang himself up with the business jackets and non-machine washable blouses, and coax Zia to turn the conveyer belt on) and went inside- he stripped off his jacket, tossed it in front of the closet door, hung his keys on the partially nailed in screw in the wall, and turned the t.v on. On channel 21 there was infomercial on the shake weight, so he changed it with a grimace on his face.  Weights were for lifting, not for shaking, like a spastic fairy.  The history channel seemed like a pretty viable attempt for entertainment, so he kept it there while he made himself a drink.  He could clearly hear from the next room, “The History Channel presents: Mysteries of Black Holes explored.”  He dismissed the drink and instead threw himself on the salmon colored love seat with the wine stain on the arm rest.  He turned up the volume a little louder.  “Black holes can be compared with rowing in a canoe, the closer the canoe gets to a waterfall, the greater the pull.  A black hole sucks in everything in it’s path, and never returns out the other end.” A trickle of saliva protruded out of the corner of Adrian’s mouth. His mind was going downstream. “If a black hole changes course and finds its way into the Milky Way galaxy, the whole world would be in grave jeopardy,” An image of giant meteors crashing down toward the earth was followed by several explosions and mushroom clouds.

“WHAT…the fuck??...”

“Or worse,” the deep narrator voice slowly cautioned, “A black hole could gravitate towards the earth, at the typical speed of roughly 11 trillion miles an hour.  The earth would get sucked in and the sheer forced of the gravity and speed inside of the black hole would compact the earth to the size..” there then was a golfer on the screen.  He looked down and putted a ball with green, blue, and white all swirled together, “Of a golf ball.”

“……..,” Adrian’s mind was officially pulverized from this information.  Adrian threw on his coat, leaving the t.v on. He wanted to see if Zia was still at the cleaners.

Snow

The smell is what I remember most vividly. To this day it brings me back to that snowy evening years ago. I was on my way home from my winter job at the resort’s rental department. The dying rays of amber winter sun filtered through the sparse, snow covered evergreens clinging to life on the steep slopes looming over my little orange Volkswagen with its narrow tires wrapped in chains. About ten minutes into the winding drive down the pass my weak headlights flashed over the reflectors of a group of cars stopped in the narrow road ahead. A group of people gathered outside their cars, backs turned away from the wind.

I pulled my little car up behind theirs’ and killed the engine, making sure to set the parking brake on the steep grade. I was already warmly dressed in my heavy boots and jacket since the Volkswagen’s heater core was busted. There were five or six people gathered around the bed of someone’s black pickup truck. A large carafe and a stack of paper cups rested on its open tailgate like they were having some kind of planned get-together.

“Hi there, help yourself to some coffee. Was on my way down to a party before the road got blocked,” said a big, burly man in a long, black coat and coonskin cap, his voice slightly muffled by a thick, yellow checkered scarf.

“Got some doughnuts there too,” he added, nodding to a large white box next to the carafe.

“No thanks,” I declined. “What’s the hold up?”

Another, shorter, portly man piped up from the side of the pickup. “There’s an accident up there. Big semi wacked an SUV. Both came around the bend over the center line. Can’t blame em’. The road’s hardly wide enough for a big truck alone.”

“Did anyone go for help? Is anyone up there helping the victims?” I asked, slightly flustered by their deadpan responses.

“Well I have a CB in my truck. Radioed the sheriff for some help and a lady drove back down to the resort to get help too,” the pickup owner offered while filling a cup with steaming coffee.

“OK, good, is anyone up there trying to help the people in the accident?” I asked again, looking around at the small crowd. They stared back at me blankly and looked down into their coffees.

“Would anyone care to help me then?” I asked, raising my voice slightly.

“Well I have a few blankets and pillows in my truck.” A girl behind the crowd offered, leaning around the big pickup guy, her curly red hair falling out of her blue knit wool hat and over the collar of her equally blue winter jacket.

“OK, good, go get those. I have a med kit in my trunk, “ I replied, turning back towards my car. A minute later we met up just in front of the stopped cars. She cradled two checkered blankets and two, crisp white pillows in her arms. I had my small, red med kit at my side.

“You work at the resort, right? At the ticket counter?” I asked. “I work rentals.”

“Yeah I do. Just started this season. I’m Sidney.” She replied.

“Cool, I’ve seen you around. I’m Tim.”

“Yeah I know. I’ve seen your nametag.”

She smiled. “I never forget a name if I can attach it to a face.”

We scrabbled our way uphill, slipping on the hard packed snow surface of the road and stumbling a few times. The walking became easier as the road leveled out just before a sharp bend. Halfway around the bend is where the smell first hit us. An icy breeze rolled down the deep mountain pass, pulling it down the narrow road and up into my nostrils. A metallic taste filled my mouth. The same created when you sand an old iron fence.

“Do you smell that? It smells like rust.” Sidney asked.

“Yeah I do,” I replied, giving her a sideways glance.

Seconds later we rounded the corner and discovered the source of the smell. It was blood. Human blood, and a lot of it. A woman lay before our feet. A dark red, slushy pool of frozen blood surrounded her, soaking into the snow. She was decapitated. Her head, still covered in a black fur hat lay a few feet away in its own smaller red slush puddle.

Sidney didn’t even pause. Without a word she ran past the dead woman, up to the red SUV. I stood back for a second taking in the grizzly scene; the smashed SUV in the foreground, a large, blue semi truck and trailer off the road behind it. Its driver leaning against the nearest fender, head in hands, bouncing up and down with his sobbing.

I saw movement in the SUV through its smashed windshield. Someone was still behind the wheel and there were people in the back too. Snapping out of my daze I sprung into action, joining Sidney by the driver’s door.

“It’s a family.” She observed as if recording notes for some report.

“Dad’s in the driver’s seat. That’s mom outside. Two kids in the back. Oh God!”

She grabbed one of her blankets and ran back to the mother. She snatched up her head by the hair, dropped it where it should be and covered the whole scene with the blanket.

“At least the kids won’t have to see her like that.” She sighed, rejoining me.

The father was conscious but clearly in a lot of pain. This was back before people really wore seatbelts. The steering wheel stopped him by the ribcage. The windshield wasn’t enough to stop mom. A big, bloody hole with a few strands of hair blowing in the breeze was all that was left of it. Dad had a big gash on his forehead; his face was covered in bright red blood and sparkling shards of glass. I dropped my kit on the ground and fished out a thick bandage. I carefully picked out as much glass as I could before pressing the bandage tightly against the oozing wound.

“Can you hold that on yourself?” I asked him. “I need to go help check on your kids.”

“Yeah I got it,” he breathed. “My wife. My wife. Is she ok?”

Sidney placed her hand on his left shoulder.

“I.. I.. She didn’t make it.” She whispered.

Hot tears welled from the man’s eyes, cutting paths through the blood caked on his face. He pressed his head into his hand on the top of the steering wheel.

“Ohhh Mary! Ahh my ribs, I can’t even cry without them hurting!” He sobbed.

Sidney and I moved to the back of the SUV. A young boy and a girl about the same age sat there on the last brown vinyl bench seat, their eyes wide and filled with tears. They weren’t bleeding anywhere and both were alert.

“Is daddy OK? Where’s mommy? Is she ok too?” The little girl asked, tugging on my sleeve with her little knit rainbow mitten covered hands.

I stood there, leaning over the seat, frozen with my jaw slack. I had no idea what to tell these poor children whose mother I had just seen lying decapitated on the ground outside and whose father was sobbing in agony and anger up front.

Sidney came to my rescue once more.

“Daddy is going to be fine,” she said, placing her gloved hand on the girl’s head. “But I’m sorry to tell you your mother is dead.”

The two children broke into tears once more, their faces scrunched in pain, hot tears dribbling down their pale cheeks.

“I had to tell them, they had to know” Sidney sighed turning back to me, her usually pale skin even lighter as blood drained from it.

“It’s ok. There was nothing we could do to save her.” I replied, dropping to one knee by the open door.

“The police should be here soon.”

That was over 20 years ago, but the whole event still haunts my memory. The father and two children were fine. He sends me a Christmas card each year, thanking us for possibly saving his life. Sidney and I dated for awhile, but eventually went our separate ways. She’s a doctor in an emergency room at a hospital in Seattle. I took a few first aid classes and carry a pretty extensive first-aid kit in my trunk next to my tire chains and a bag of salt. I haven’t had to use it yet, but I definitely won’t hesitate if the time comes.

Epilogue

I walk out of a big, brick edifice saturated with books and computers and students studying in order to make the grade and make the pay day and make their world a better place. I will not remain underground. I will walk down the sidewalk, past Murkland Hall where I was once taught French and I will live according to the fog that has engulfed this town, this Durham. I see it spread over everything; I see it flow into every pore. The sky is a mixture of black and gray and the stars are absent in this waking dream that I have found myself living within.

I walk down the stone steps and glance casually at the boys and girls sitting outside, talking to their cell phones. Talking to people on their cell phones that may happen to be so very far away. They hide from the world, with their electronica in their hands and I, I do as well. But mine, it conveys music. It conveys sound that I, otherwise, could never hear. The cobblestone walkway leads me to a street, a Main Street, and a single, solitary bus stop that I only use when I must get to where I am going. I continue on through the fog with the notes and sounds and lyrics that had, over time, over the time I have been given and have taken, been the key to my understandings of how I must operate within this phantom world.

And the lights, the lights are my new stars. When fog shrouds the world, one must look to artificial lights for guidance. I must find my way home, in a building in the woods, if I am ever to tell you how much I love you (with my machines because there is distance between us). Machines, it seems, are the only ways I can speak with you, for through these devices, made by man, I can instantly communicate words that would, otherwise, need to be professed loudly from the tallest mountain with a megaphone that would need to be heard far and wide – but in the end it still may not be able to reach you. Maybe I would otherwise need to speak with smoke signals, with Morse code, with telegrams that may, possibly, be lost in translation by way of the international postal system.

I walk upon this granite sidewalk, engulfed in gray, wet by the moisture of the fog. I can see the street lights as I wander on. They are white, blue, and orange and every shade in between. I question why the colors are so varied, but then, I realize that light itself cannot always travel in the same way each time. It must vary, as must the colors that their bulbs are coated in. Some of them flicker, some of them find themselves lost and waning, and some burn bright. In my heart, though, I know I must follow them all. I must gaze upon the lamp poles which hold these lights and see upon them the droplets of the fog, see the reflection of the lights they support, and therefore, see the counterfeit stars reflecting brightly against cold, dark metal. As I walk, I watch the ground, seeing the cracks of the sidewalk. I see the concrete bricks that have been placed there as they are – only through those lines, those dividing lines, can I see where one brick starts and one brick stops. I continue walking these pathways, these streets that leads me to a place I am supposed to call my home. This home is somewhere regulated by rules set upon me by the government, by law, and by my university. These laws are set in place in the name of safety. They are set in place in the name of progress and of reputation. None of these factors can be impressed upon me, for my safety, my progress, and my reputation are all malleable subjects, things that only I can find myself and only according to myself.

I see the street signs. One arrow points straight and another curves to the left. This curve, this curve to the left that dictates traffic – it says that is the only way you can go. “Well,” I think, “then maybe I shall walk straight forever. If I do, maybe I will find another sign. Another that will lead me to where you are sitting in your comfortable, beige IKEA chair and reading your textbooks on neuroscience and microbiology.”

But then my eyes dart forward to another sign on another light post. It contains the letter “P” with a line struck through it. No parking. I have no intention to park here, or there, or anywhere unless I am truly beside myself with happiness. The parking reflects the light reflected on the fog and I turn right and descend a set of granite stairs and, before me, a Sahara of a parking lot, literately twinkling. These lights guide me home. They set in motion my footsteps moving forward, one foot guiding the other, that foot guiding the first.

The fog may engulf the landscape, and may hide the true stars but iat the end of the desert-parking lot I can see my apartment complex. I can see, faintly, through the evergreen and maple trees the five massive, brick buildings known as The Gables. The lights that guide me home – they shine. They twinkle. Their illumination extends further, because of this fog. I can see circles of false-light around their epicenters. They look like halos, like bright halos that extend and give the fog color and depth.

There is moisture growing on my eyelashes, on my nose, and I must wipe away the false-tears from my face, but fuck, my mouth cannot escape from this pleasure-smile. This hope-smile. The fog here does not cloud my vision as I walk through the massive field of tar and gravel. There is a spring in my step but it is autumn and the leaves, they shine from the lights. They glisten from the fog. They reflect stars of oranges and greens and browns and reds and yellows and they reflect back upon me. They are all moistened. This moisture gathers and extends and the droplets of fog morph into droplets of water into droplets of tears as they fall from the maple leaves of orange and green and brown and red and yellow. Nothing is invisible. Everything is only hazy, strange, and beautiful.

But as I walk through that parking lot my thoughts remain focused on you. They remain wavering between what we had and what we will have. I remain in the middle and you are always five hours ahead (away). I feel as if I can explain all of these things around me I can get back to you. I feel as if, today, when I read in class a poem written by a man named Sufi that all my volumes of love will have to wait until we are together, living together and I can make you breakfast in the morning again like I sometimes would when you would sleep with me in my big, big bed with the most comfortable mattress that I had ever slept on and I would wake up and you would wake up (but we both were awake, really, we just both wanted to lay in bed) and we would go downstairs and I would try to make you scrambled eggs but I would ruin them because I am careless and you would smile and crack another and I would sit down at the island-table and watch the small, fuzzy TV set on the counter and you as you played chef.

But, I say to Sufi, why can I not write them now? But Sufi is gone, and he cannot reply so I must answer this question for myself. I think, as I escape the field of tar, the Sahara called “A” Lot, that I must always answer my own questions when it relates to me, my love, and myself. Only I know my love and my strengths and my weaknesses. Others, even you, might think you know. But I promise you all (the collective you) that what you see is through your own inner eyes – not mine.

I reach the sidewalk once again. This one, however, leads to a brick walkway that will take me home where I will drink my clear, alcoholic liquid and smoke my long, 50 cent off Camel Cigarettes and, after I feel as if all the love in my life is bursting out of me I will find the field of green grass, dampened by the fog, and I will walk in circles with my music-electronica in my hand and I will spin, and I will look at the sky, orange and blue, purple and blue and everything, everything will be illuminated by the lamps. And then, after I am dizzy with all those emotions I might now understand (for you and I and I and where I, myself, am going) I will open the door to my building, the North building, and walk into the mud room, I will swipe my student ID, the one with the picture from three years ago when I looked, somehow, like a greaser, in the door-opening machine and the double doors will unlock for me. I will walk up three flights of gray stairs, walk down a hallway painted orange that looks, somehow, like a hotel floor, and then go to my room, 307. I will wave hello to my roommates and I will go to my room, where I live (and sleep) alone.

And I will write this. This that begins in the middle follows on with a beginning, and, hopefully, as this all continues, has a happy ending.

Which, I know, it will. For when everything culminates in recognition of facts, I have recognized that everything, right now (and, strangely, before), leads me somehow to you.

Some sort of Rap type thing

Danielle Steinman

Rap-ish

You rub your lap,
And you tell me that you’re Santa,
With one eyebrow cocked,
Like I should give a damn about you,
So you like the way I look,
Doesn’t mean I owe you anything
And yet you keep getting pissed,
When I tell you I'm not interested,
Don't tell me to lighten up,
After I try to pry you away,
Stop touching my legs,
Take your paws off my waist,
Get your fucking fingerprints
Away from my face,
How many times do I have to say “Nay”
Before you realize that I’m not playing games?
I’m sick of this shit,
I’m too smart for this shit,
I never asked for this shit,
And I can’t believe you assholes
Can get away with this shit!

Goldie Locks and the Three Douche Bags

“Cindy!” the assistant manager snapped, “Table 17 hasn’t ordered yet, oh- and table 14 needs refills.” He whizzed past her in a breathless fury.  Weekend waitressing is not for the weak at heart.  She caught onto this fast.  It was bearable when people ate their fucking high cholesterol, over-processed food without any complaints or remarks pertaining to its shitty quality.  It’s a hit or miss at a chain food restaurant.  This plain and simple fact is sometimes lost on people.

When leaving the cozy beer scented nook of a college university, one usually assumes that the world is waiting for your resume and eager to hire.  After almost a year of sending in resume after resume and not hearing back, Cindy felt sorely misguided and anxiety set in. She took up a job waitressing full time at Applebees to pay the rent (She refused to cave in to her mother’s desperate pleas to move back in with her to save money.  For Cindy, it would be like putting training wheels on Lance Armstrong’s bike- An insulting and humiliating regression).  She had a clear vision of what her life would be like after graduation, and it felt like she was being swept down by the neck into an undertow when there were no visible signs of danger to prepare her- no white caps, no waves.  Just sun.

She threw up her curly, honey-blonde hair into a messy bun that settled firmly on the crown of her head.  Taking three deep breaths, she strode over to table 17.  As she was turning the corner she stood up straight and put a smile on her face that felt as natural as a Twinkie tastes.  “Hi Folks, my name’s Cindy.  Can I start you guys off with some appetizers?”  She was relieved to see that she was serving a small family.  They leave better tips than high school couples that touch each other underneath the table.  The woman looked too well dressed to be in such an establishment.  Her Ralph Lauren polo T-shirt didn’t have one wrinkle in it.  She loathed this woman.  Wanted her to choke on a chicken bone.  Her husband dressed similar to his wife, wearing khaki pleated pants and thick framed glasses adorned his clean shaven face.  Their son looked to be about 14, and didn’t look too thrilled to be there with them.

Twenty minutes later, Cindy forged her way through the maze of tables and made it to table 17 without dropping the tray.  She slowly placed the food on the table in front of them and their surveying eyes.  The woman dipped the spoon in the Minestrone soup and then slowly put it towards her puckered lips.  Her eyes widened with a blank furiousness, “Ouch!! This is scalding Hot.”  As she was dabbing her blistered tongue with her napkin and taking sips of water to alleviate the pain, her husband held up his fork which had a hunk of steak impaled at the end and held it right in front on Cindy’s face and said, “This steak is cold.. how long has it been hanging out like this. Take it back.” He shoved his plate to the far end of the table.  The son already gobble down half of his meal and was probably oblivious to his parent’s complaints.  Cindy assumed he’d learned to block it out.  So that was the final straw, that was it.  Cindy ripped off her apron as if it were on fire and handed it to some girl at table 3.  When she got outside, she lit up a cigarette and drove home.