September 18 - Service Charge
There’s little quite as dull as the early morning hours of a dead-end fast food job. At least, Ezekiel thinks as much while he works the cashier’s station at two in the morning, and he’s entirely correct in thinking that. A customer comes in (as customers are always wont to do), a balding middle-aged man in a poorly-tailored black suit, carrying a slightly worse-for-wear brown leather briefcase. He looks like he’s been through hell and back on this particular evening, but apparently he made time on the way back to grab a burger.
“Could I, uh, get, uh,” the man stutters, adjusting his coppery spectacles and letting the late hour fully cloud his brain. Ezekiel gets bored as the man stands there, stuttering and stumbling, seemingly unable to comprehend the sheer complexity of a fast food menu, so he decides to take a dive into the man’s mind.
It’s a dull, dusty place, walls covered in spreadsheets and filing cabinets. Little of use in the back rooms, so Ezekiel wanders a bit further, finds where the thinking is actually happening. He finds a single person manning the control room, leaning back and staring at his phone. Well, that certainly explains the slow response, Ezekiel thinks, as he tries to figure out what the man will order whenever this guy’s done. On the monitors in the control room, there’s already a list of preferred fast food orders, full screen for convenience.
Ezekiel jumps back out of the man’s mind, eyes returning to his normal shade of green, and simply states “You want the number three, right?” The man looks shocked for a moment, before nodding. “Cool. Glad that’s over with. That’ll be $7.89. It’ll be right out.” Ezekiel slouches back into his standing position, knowing the rest of the night will be far more boring.