Diner World

07/ EVERYBODY EATS WHEN THEY COME TO MY HOUSE

The men sat around the control panel waiting for a signal, the autumn leaves settling on the polished metal of the enclosure. This settling created a pick-pocketing pattern of red and silver on the floor, starkly contrasting with the mellow brown of the men's suits. One of the men moved softly out of his chair as if the mere suggestion of such an action would render his entire existence moot. He failed in this action. His expensive, fake designer shoe landed on one of the many leaves scattered about the room and produced a resounding crunch that echoed against the round walls. He cursed quietly and then left his colleagues in order to procure a cup of lukewarm coffee in the break room. He liked coffee.

The room itself was a grand hemisphere of chrome and glass with an opening cut out of the top that led into the vast cosmos. A countertop of light ran along the outside of the hemisphere, chairs jammed in front of it at certain intervals, and was only broken by the occasional door leading into a less impressive room. At the present moment, the enclosure was tuned to a late autumn in the particle forests of the Northern Sahara. The wind was a brick laden Freudian mess which ruffled the hair of the men who sat monitoring the ever static luminescent panel. It was to these men that the wind most wanted to communicate, a task that proved impossible due to the men's laser focus on coffee and work. The wind had several points to make about the philosophical implications of cantered houseflies in the context of Twelfth Night but found that no audience wanted to receive such unparalleled existentialism. It would have to settle for making a shoddy charlie out of things. Several papers which stacked in the corner of the room were picked up by the wind and flew out into the abyss of the Autumn sky, fizzling out of reason. There had been no corner.

A loudspeaker crackled to life from the center of the floor and echoed an expressive French phrase to the men who were working. Some light jazz replaced the voice after it had finished. In a simultaneous fashion, the men began to alter the light field. Previously unseen levers jammed into place and buttons were mashed in a mechanical motion. The panel pulsed between cyan and crimson while the opening hissed with paramatic world static. A gumdrop frenzy of movement and shallow field electricity permeated the room, finally subsiding with the advent of an entirely new form of blue gelatin based matter. A man had appeared in the center of the room, covered in the gooey matter and looking somewhat confused. He held a briefcase in one hand and a carefully written letter in the other. The pulsing stopped and everything resumed a sort of stillness while the jazz played on. The song had transitioned from a forgettable ditty into 'Rockin' In Rhythm' by Duke Ellington.

The men simultaneously rose out of their respective chairs and pulled large axes out of bins set into the floor. The axes made an electric, brassy noise as they hit the large blob of gelatin. Each worker hit the gelatin at exactly the same time, their synchronous behavior seeming to frighten the small man trapped inside. In a minute flat, the man lay on the floor, covered in slime but completely unharmed. One of the men took the letter out of the stranger's hand while the others directed him to a new station where the field of light evaporated the terrible substance that coated his being. After helping the gelatin man out and orienting him to the job at hand, the other workers sat down and resumed their previous tasks. The man who had gone for coffee entered the enclosure through a thin door. The man who had taken the letter now handed it to the man who loved coffee. He opened the letter and frowned.

The opening in the ceiling was now marshmallow grey with a slight tint of maraschino cherry, the syrup of the days dripping slowly down the essence of the world. Poorly lit plumes of effervescent macrons stretched out into nothingness while the smell of barbecue and licorice pulled into view. The strange light from this world cast itself down upon the ivory scrawled letter that the coffee man held in his temporally unguarded mind. The letter smelled like peppermint but exuded death. The handwriting was childish at best, although it was the hand of a highly developed, precocious little genius of a child. The man who loved coffee looked up at the sky, tossed the letter to the ground, and strode out of the room altogether. The other men stared at him as he walked out. One of them got up and picked up the note again. It bit his hand and he yelped as it fluttered back to its resting place on the immaculate foot terrain.