Cheese faces clad in corporate straitjackets, knives in heart pockets
The workers are bent over tight buns and meat
They shuffle and huffle gross veggies, throw them down on chilled animal flesh
Slather bread with mayo or mustard… The place smells like vinegar and paint
One young woman enthusiastically sprinkles signature juice all over someone’s sandwich
Looks like she is gushing on a footlong
A grumpy old lady who looks like a Trump frump tends to the grill
She’s all about hot sandwiches and it excites her as she skillfully orchestrates her silver spatulas in slicing and flipping motions
The crew leader is a pony-tailed blonde with fish lips
I imagine her swimming around in an aquarium wearing her soul-sucking uniform and going blurp blurp throughout her painful days as she waits for the world to end…
The drink machine hums as I fill my paper cup with poison cream soda
I find a table and unpackage my Super Club Sub, a No. 9
I open my midget bag of chips and begin to eat
The sandwich is sublime, the textures and flavors mingle so perfectly
I watch the people roll in, stand in line, gaze at the menu with upturned chins and dead eyes
The man behind the counter spreads bread, slices meats and cheeses
The gushing girl adds the condiments and toppings with a deadpan grin
She passes her masterful work of art to the woman with fish lips who packages it all up and takes money…
There is something about the sky outside that’s different
A hum in the air breeds warning
And then the big plane came, skimming across the sky like a tattooed dragon of lust
And then the hatch opened and they let the bomb go
A matter of seconds…
The sandwich shop was obliterated and I along with it
I saw the workers spinning in pieces
Meats, bread and veggies in a whirlwind
The great tunnel of death light opened, and we were all sucked in
Then there was I in a sterile white room sitting on a chair in a circle of other chairs
And the other chairs had all the workers from the sandwich shop: Gusher girl, fish lips, slicer guy, old lady griller and they were all talking among themselves and completely ignored me
“Hello,” I said. Then louder
They all looked at me and laughed and then it was the strangest thing because they all got up from their chairs and began to dance, and it was a weird little dance, arms outstretched and their feet moving back and forth, and it was all very gingerly and there was no music but it was all very bizarre
There was one door in the room, and I got up and went to it, yanked it open and suddenly stepped into the sandwich shop again as if I had never left
I went to my table where the remains of my lunch still laid and I sat down and proceeded to eat again
And then it went like this: The familiar sandwich shop workers all came over and encircled my table and began doing that strange little dance again and this time they laughed, they all laughed out loud
And so, I abruptly got up and went to the door and went out
The sun was warm, the traffic hummed nearby, and nothing had really changed after all
It had all been in my chopped up mind.
Your thoughts?