The McDonald's Incident

In a surrealistic environment, a man stabs another over a seat in McDonalds, while the patrons watch apathetically. In the end, who is watching? And are they watching from the outside, or within?

It must have been a mark of fatalism, when he walked through the door and craved a double quarter cheeseburger. It was lunchtime, or not at all, because there were people inside like there always was and should be and always will be. Because that is how it is.

Worn polo and shorts on a body, but there was a polished tie and a jacket and three school uniforms; one grey, one red and one warm blue. Faces had wrinkled, still had, would have, displaying how tenses collided somewhere, or were forced together" but there were pastel coloured seats in a row, all round with faint impressions, and they were equal.

The man did not notice this, because the counter was brighter, or maybe because it was something that was not supposed to be noticed, like something that is nothing to be noticed at all. Or maybe notice is a bright spotlight that chooses its lens past winter’s grave, grey" colour all that stuttered into monochrome because we blinked it away.

Because cheeseburger. Six-dollars, like sand-dollars on black coke and tar. Meal or ala carte?

The table was blue, but spangled with black beyond the fish tank glass. Another stood outside and ogled in. Meal or ala carte? Pastel chairs swivelled and a mother stared, but not outside, because sun-shaded was a screen while the baby at her neck screamed and screamed and screamed. Meanwhile, a sweet little girl with a pink bow in her hair blinked and tugged. The mother shifted and viciously, slapped her. Opposite them, a woman with red lipstick smeared her lips on a straw. On the ceiling, a musical note stretched taut. Low G.

He chose that blue table, while someone outside passed, stared curiously before walking away. The fish tank glass was thick, and grimy with handprints and careless window wipings. Another man stood adjacent to him, stared, assumed" until he placed, quite subtly, a hand on that blue sea and the another man stiffened. Now you, know that offence is probably cut from wooden boards and painted in same colour, so many different shades; like masquerade masks" or potato sacks with cut-out eyes. However, inevitably, along the old stretch, all the seats are the same.

Well… yes or not, no but maybe (Do I know? Who are we to know?), because the another man had waited and waited until perhaps the sun got flung back past the fish tank glass, and besides; it was not a crisp white shirt with black slacks but something less" and descended some more. Of course he agreed he was wrong, not aloud, not in his head but somewhere, somewhere high up on the ceiling where a low F played. A discordant thread suddenly appeared, but it was a musical note. And it was a high F. (To do? Yes? Yes, to do. We’ll get right back to it soon)

Mine. A name somehow imprinted somewhere, not his nor his, but his or perhaps his (Who?). It blazed in the air, or beneath it, like a low, thin stretch of oil, thickening. It was a mark of eyes and which fluid touched the sea first, as if both men had reached in, dug into their eyeballs and slathered their viscosity over the flow" but now it blended into Tyrian. Sensible? The baby screamed and screamed and screamed, prompting the little girl with the red bow to smother his little face. The baby did not stop, so she threw it to the another man, when the man sat down first.

Desperation, smeared because it was inherent, or perhaps the sight of it was inherent, or maybe because it started there and sprouted, higher and higher, like a beanstalk but from high F to E. Encore! But it never really ended in the first place. The another man gritted his teeth, for all know (Know? Know what?) that politeness is a chariot restrained by chimeras, a fantastical vision of red bordering on mystical, but on reality? Border, shared by mounds of scarlet snow, because they were so bright, or too bright that were made into monochrome?

A refusal to budge. No, mine, the man insisted, because snow was falling in droplets from the sky, but only into the coke. Meal or ala carte? White, no, not white.

Somewhere, on the map of greys, reds and blues, a tattooed line was crossed. The mother watched while the woman dashed her red lipstick against her burger, leaving a kiss. Through the oil print marks on the fish tank glass, someone gurgled. The another man raised a plastic knife. Fireworks sprouted from it, like filigrees of nickel and glass. The warm sea boiled, but the another stuck out his tongue and fried the writhing flesh in the water. The man opened his mouth, eyes wide, cranberry pies streaming from his mouth.

STAB!

Meal or ala carte? The counter is bright, it cannot be otherwise, because cheeseburgers, what else? The mother stood up and wrapped her fingers around the woman’s neck. The woman blinked and blew the little girl a kiss. The blue table, warped by high heat, crumpled and stood by the corner.

Meanwhile, the one looking through the fish tank glass peered in a little closely. Who? Somewhere, perhaps hanging from the ceiling, a choir stared at me. Yes, through the fish tank glass, kissed by dozens of lips and finger prints, so blurry as to be blindfolded with frosted plastic. Now you, I ask you: where am I? Inside or outside? Who, me?

No. We. The burgers are delicious. We’ll get right back to it soon.

Author's Note

Hi! This is my first attempt at writing a surrealistic, dreamy sort of piece that still attempts to convey a message at the same time. I'd really really like some opinion about this, as well as advice on how to go about what I'm trying to do ^_^