Soaring Flash
“RIGHT THIS WAAAY!”
“Let me know when you’re ready to orrrder!”
“I’ll be with you in a momennnnt!”
“Have a good niiight!”
I watched out of the corner of my eye as the restaurant manager schmoozed with customers at the table next to me.
Suddenly, she turned in my direction and beckoned me over. “Now your turn. Repeat after me.”
“What?”
“You always speak too slowwwly! Speak faster, like meee!”
How is that faster?
“You are like zombie! Same face and voice always!”
“Okay…?”
“You don’t have to kiss ass. Just try to hide how little you care. Not that most people care about their job, huh? Kah ha ha ha ha!” Cackling, she disappeared into the back room.
She seemed to be implying that my customer service skills needed work—although if you asked me, my most glaring issue at work was my so-called “uniform.” I tugged its hem down nervously.
I’d thought I was doing a decent enough job, but maybe I was lacking.
I scanned the restaurant’s tables, chairs, even the decorations on the walls. Once we opened for business, people came in and sat down, and…that was it. As far as I could tell, there was no deeper meaning to any of it. What was I supposed to look at, or see, or feel? It was all the same to me, so it was only natural that my responses were always identical.
I could vaguely remember people I used to like…dreams I used to have…somewhere in the distant past, across the gulf of time. But at some point those things faded away, as if every morning I sloughed off the lichen of emotions that had previously constituted my identity. Along the way, I’d learned that feeling things was stressful, frustrating, and generally exhausting. Now, I’d sunk to the stillness of rock bottom, and I didn’t feel the need to climb back up.
Perhaps, after long enough, the river of time would polish me so smooth that even the lichen would stop growing. That didn’t sound so bad. Life was easier when nothing ever happened.
Gazing at the crooked crimson tables surrounded by nothing but empty chairs, I almost convinced myself that I was seeing the future.
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