Skip to main content

"Dead Food"

Working fast food was always the worst job I'd ever held down. Being under staffed yet overwhelmed with orders. Surrounded by some co-workers that never quite feel like doing their job. Eight long hours of endless torment that end with a minimum wage paycheck. It's terrible, but I need to pay rent. I can't afford to quit.
The kind of restaurant I work in only has a drive-thru, due to a virus that has been going around, prompting us to close off the eating areas on the inside of the restaurant. And even though we post signs all around the building, we still get people coming inside and complaining about the inside being closed down, as if we as basic workers have anything to do with it.
Today was no different. A man, whose eyes looked swollen and red with grease stains all over his shirt, coughing and sneezing into his hands, came into the building. He walked up to the front counter, only to be greeted by a cashier stating that the restaurant is closed and that he'll have to use the drive-thru windows to order.
The man didn't say anything in response. He instead sneezed on her. She staggered back and let out a groan. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser above a nearby sink and wiped off her face. "Gross." Without saying a word, the man turned around, apologized in a sickly voice, and walked out the door. 
I grabbed a paper towel with some disinfecting spray and sprayed down the door handle, as well as the counter area he'd touched. I desperately hoped that the man didn't have the virus. If anyone here caught it, the place would get shut down and leaving me out of a job. There's no way I could let that happen.
The rest of the day resumed as normal. Some disgruntled employees getting upset with being overworked, customers being angry about little things that we couldn't fix. A manager yelling at someone before sending them home. Normally things like that would surprise me, but I've been working here for so long that there's not much I haven't seen.
Later in the day, someone fainted. This was one thing I'd never seen before. Strangely enough, we hadn't been very busy the last half hour. She wasn't over worked or anything. I'd seen her tackle things much worse than what today had thrown at her. The manager went to check her pulse. She was dead. I was shocked to realize this was the same girl that had been sneezed on earlier by that guy that had walked in.
A lot of workers were panicked and some were crying in the back. There was one girl trying to hold herself together as she was taking an order. I saw she'd accidentally pressed the wrong button on her screen and could hear the customer yelling at her through the headset. What was wrong with people?
Not five minutes had passed before someone working in the kitchen had fallen unconscious in the middle of making food. The manager moved around the guy an continued working on the thing the guy was making before wrapping that burger and putting it in a bag.
Next thing I knew, there were more and more people inside the building fainting. Eventually even myself. The last thing I heard was the honking of horns outside in the drive-thru, as the customers grew impatient for their food to be made by now dead workers.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Hooked"

T he summer can be the perfect time to get away, to unwind while kicking your feet into the cool water while the hot sun is beaming down on you. But what if the bright summer sky was hiding behind it something even darker? I had been waiting for today all week. They'd finally opened the stream up for fishing. I was a little upset at the fact they'd decided to raise prices, but I didn't care, it was a nice day outside and I wasn't about to waste it sitting inside when I could be fishing. With my tacklebox in hand and my fishing pole in the other, I made my way to my truck. I threw everything in the back seat. I was about to head to the driver's seat but hesitated when I thought about bringing my cooler. I had one in the back ready for fish, as well as housing some canisters of worms. But what if I brought one along for some drinks? After a few moments I decided it might not be the greatest idea. It would be too much to carry and I didn't trust anyone that...

"The Light"

  My day off from work was supposed to be a day for me to relax and unwind and rest. The past few days had been incredibly stressful, from hateful customers to managers that expected everyone to do their jobs for them, and everything in between. It was nice to finally have that down time to spend away from all that. I'd decided to spend my time, not to get things done around the house, but to play a new game I'd been hooked on lately. It was this puzzle game where every room is seemingly randomly generated, each with clean and clever puzzles. After booting up the game, I was presented a room with white padded tiles all over the walls. There were a few green, red, and blue squares. I guess my job was to manipulate those tiles somehow to get me from where I was no, up to the top of the level. I looked around the room and could barely make out an opening. I pressed a single button to get myself started when the light in my bedroom burnt out, leaving me shrouded in darkness...

"Checkmate"

W hen my best friend and I got into a small disagreement, I didn't think all that much of it afterward. When he and I fought, it didn't really end in much besides us stepping away from each other for a few hours before reuniting as if nothing had previously taken place. I knew it meant we had a strong friendship. The argument we just had, however, was completely different from the small disagreements we usually had. Instead of it being about videogames of films, this one got a little personal. Pretty much, I had deeply judged the guy because he wasn't a fan of my speedrun tournament. He swore that I had agreed to hang out with him just before going live with my greatest world record speedrun attempt yet, one I had been spending three weeks practicing for. Before we went our separate ways, instead of wishing me luck or doing our usually angred goodbyes, he snickered at me, saying "Good luck with your stream." Before I could ask him what that was about, he left ...