Down Here the Sky is Always Falling
"Good morning," your coworker Nina says. You grumble out a 'good morning' to her and clock in. Your shirt itches. You knew you should have washed it last night, but you couldn't bring yourself to get out of bed. You only have two work shirts and the other one was ripped two weeks ago, so you have worn the same shirt for the last nine days.
They have you on the register right now, which is good, because you don't know if you would be able to handle the fryer or the drive thru. (God, how you hate spelling it like that – it drives the English major part of you mad, especially since you know whenever somehow says "drive thru" they are mentally spelling it T-H-R-U.)
Working here isn't that bad. Sure, the pay is shit and the hours are shit and most of the customers are shit, but you like most of your co-workers. They are all reasonable and rational people caught up in an unreasonable and irrational world.
Your last job was a nightmare. Sure, you have better pay and it was nine-to-five (unlike this place, which is five-to-noon or sometimes five-to-nine), but the boss was unreasonable and your co-workers seemed as if they were about to crack at any moment. When the stars went out, well, you weren't surprised to come into work the next day to find the boss had cleaned out everything and ran off. They didn't even leave enough for one last paycheck.
So now you work in fast food, except after nine months of no stars, something strange has happened. Usually, patrons of fast food want it just that: fast. In and out, as the saying goes. But in recent months, you've seen more and more sit-down customers. Not just old men with newspapers (always proclaiming doom, although they were probably right this time) or mothers and fathers with unruly children, but everybody: all the normal patrons have stopped taking their food to go and started to sit down and talk.
Mostly, they talk about the stars. About why the stars disappeared. Different theories, different explanations, every one as valid as the next, since nobody can explain it. The empty sky has become the great equalizer in that regard.
But not all patrons are like that. The ones who don't want to sit down, who don't want to talk, they go to the drive-thru.
"Shit," Nina says. She is wearing the drive-thru headphones, the ones that make your ears hurt because the foam ripped and nobody has replaced it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"We got a yeller," Nina says.
You look around for the manager, but he's nowhere to be found. Probably outside smoking, but that doesn't help you now, because one of the drive-thru customers has become irate and started yelling. Nine months ago, this wouldn't be much of a problem: try to calm them down, offer them free food, and if they get violent, call the police.
But that was nine months ago. Times have changed. Those who yelled at the drive-thru used to just be irate; now, they were furious. Not at the drive-thru, but at life, at the way things fell apart, at the starless night sky. They became violent now nine out of ten times and the police never answered when you called.
So you grab the baseball bat from beneath the counter and you stride outside the building. The sun hasn't risen yet from behind the horizon and you are getting ready to beat someone back from the drive-thru.
The car is a yellow SUV and the driver is a man in a blue polo shirt. He is busy yelling obscenities into the drive-thru speaker when you walk up to his car. "Sir," you call out.
The man looks at you and then turns his eyes toward the baseball bat you're holding. "What do you think you're going to do with that?" he asks in a condescending tone.
"If you leave right now," you say, "nothing."
"I'll leave when I'm satisfied," the man says. "This bitch mouthed off to me and I want to talk directly to her." He gestures to the speaker where you know Nina can hear every word.
"I'm afraid that's not possible," you say, trying to sound intimidating. "You're going to have to leave." You lift the bat to your shoulders.
"You know what?" the man says. "Fuck you all." He opens his glove compartment and reaches inside.
You know what's inside that compartment. The image springs forth into your mind: gun. Last month, a man pulled a gun at the drive-thru when you were working it. He didn't want money. He just wanted to see if he could. He wanted to know if he was able to shoot someone. Luckily, he wasn't.
This man might though. You can see him pull something out, but you're already moving forward and swinging the bat and just as he sticks his hand out the window and you see the glint of metal, you swing down and smash his hand against the door. His fingers are broken and bloody and you can see several bones. And lying on the ground is a small silver gun.
The man is screaming now. He holds his wounded hand to his chest and drives off, leaving his gun behind. You pick it up. You've never shot a gun before. Perhaps it was time to learn.
After all, when the sky is falling, people tend to do crazy things.
nt
They have you on the register right now, which is good, because you don't know if you would be able to handle the fryer or the drive thru. (God, how you hate spelling it like that – it drives the English major part of you mad, especially since you know whenever somehow says "drive thru" they are mentally spelling it T-H-R-U.)
Working here isn't that bad. Sure, the pay is shit and the hours are shit and most of the customers are shit, but you like most of your co-workers. They are all reasonable and rational people caught up in an unreasonable and irrational world.
Your last job was a nightmare. Sure, you have better pay and it was nine-to-five (unlike this place, which is five-to-noon or sometimes five-to-nine), but the boss was unreasonable and your co-workers seemed as if they were about to crack at any moment. When the stars went out, well, you weren't surprised to come into work the next day to find the boss had cleaned out everything and ran off. They didn't even leave enough for one last paycheck.
So now you work in fast food, except after nine months of no stars, something strange has happened. Usually, patrons of fast food want it just that: fast. In and out, as the saying goes. But in recent months, you've seen more and more sit-down customers. Not just old men with newspapers (always proclaiming doom, although they were probably right this time) or mothers and fathers with unruly children, but everybody: all the normal patrons have stopped taking their food to go and started to sit down and talk.
Mostly, they talk about the stars. About why the stars disappeared. Different theories, different explanations, every one as valid as the next, since nobody can explain it. The empty sky has become the great equalizer in that regard.
But not all patrons are like that. The ones who don't want to sit down, who don't want to talk, they go to the drive-thru.
"Shit," Nina says. She is wearing the drive-thru headphones, the ones that make your ears hurt because the foam ripped and nobody has replaced it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"We got a yeller," Nina says.
You look around for the manager, but he's nowhere to be found. Probably outside smoking, but that doesn't help you now, because one of the drive-thru customers has become irate and started yelling. Nine months ago, this wouldn't be much of a problem: try to calm them down, offer them free food, and if they get violent, call the police.
But that was nine months ago. Times have changed. Those who yelled at the drive-thru used to just be irate; now, they were furious. Not at the drive-thru, but at life, at the way things fell apart, at the starless night sky. They became violent now nine out of ten times and the police never answered when you called.
So you grab the baseball bat from beneath the counter and you stride outside the building. The sun hasn't risen yet from behind the horizon and you are getting ready to beat someone back from the drive-thru.
The car is a yellow SUV and the driver is a man in a blue polo shirt. He is busy yelling obscenities into the drive-thru speaker when you walk up to his car. "Sir," you call out.
The man looks at you and then turns his eyes toward the baseball bat you're holding. "What do you think you're going to do with that?" he asks in a condescending tone.
"If you leave right now," you say, "nothing."
"I'll leave when I'm satisfied," the man says. "This bitch mouthed off to me and I want to talk directly to her." He gestures to the speaker where you know Nina can hear every word.
"I'm afraid that's not possible," you say, trying to sound intimidating. "You're going to have to leave." You lift the bat to your shoulders.
"You know what?" the man says. "Fuck you all." He opens his glove compartment and reaches inside.
You know what's inside that compartment. The image springs forth into your mind: gun. Last month, a man pulled a gun at the drive-thru when you were working it. He didn't want money. He just wanted to see if he could. He wanted to know if he was able to shoot someone. Luckily, he wasn't.
This man might though. You can see him pull something out, but you're already moving forward and swinging the bat and just as he sticks his hand out the window and you see the glint of metal, you swing down and smash his hand against the door. His fingers are broken and bloody and you can see several bones. And lying on the ground is a small silver gun.
The man is screaming now. He holds his wounded hand to his chest and drives off, leaving his gun behind. You pick it up. You've never shot a gun before. Perhaps it was time to learn.
After all, when the sky is falling, people tend to do crazy things.
nt