Corporeal Nightmares

Hwy X

Nancy stood tippy-toed trying to hook the handholds on the side of the box high atop the stack. Nearly toppling backwards into a heap of discarded cardboard as her fingers found them, she awkwardly regained balance before wobbling legs braced against the weight. Frozen hot dogs clacked against each other.

"Nancy!" Burt's shrill and demanding voice barged into the supply room. "We need those jalapeno dogs on the rollers, pronto!"

She rolled her eyes, pressing the frigid, frost-caked box against the ruffled edges of her monochromatic red and blue Economart polo. Its coarse fabric chaffed her skin. God, could the uniforms in this place be any more obnoxious? Stacked high to the ceiling were boxes stuffed with hyper-processed snacks. They resembled food, just like her existence resembled a life.

"Let's go!" His voice left little room for interpretation.

Burt was extra cranky today. Best to hustle and serve up the swill to locals who didn't know better or didn't care. Maybe one to the random long haul trucker who made a few wrong turns on the way to the quarry. Not much longer for those out-of-town visitors though. Mining would be shutting down by the end of the year.

The massive steel vault slapped tight. Air sucked back inside as it sealed. She exhaled. Burt's stern glare carried through the translucent plastic of the main desk's partition.

Nancy returned it with disinterest. "Two minutes." She tried to keep any contempt out of her voice. Going toe to toe with the spectacled, half-man manager only led to more hassle.

His gaze returned to the numbing glow of his laptop. Thin gray hairs floated in a rotating fan's current as he shook his head. She wanted to do the same, the weight of the box yanking at her shoulders. Muscles in her neck kept taut.

Piece by piece, she placed the dogs on the slicked griddle from the freezer-burned box. As they began to thaw, the smell assaulted her nostrils. Curling upwards from the corn oil slicked steel, it was like a steam roller crushing the corpses of a thousand undead pigs. She could hardly imagine a more disgusting stench. Her father had worked at the sanitation plant to boot.

The clock had crawled at a snail's pace for the last fifteen minutes of the shift. Now the second hand crept impossibly slow towards the hour mark, taunting her. The clock locked into the eight o'clock position and hung for what seemed an eternity. An eternity that had lasted three years, ever since she hit sixteen.

She slinked her way towards exit, dashing between the shelves as if she were an inmate in a prison break. The deceptively friendly ping from the automatic door left her reeling. Internally, she grasped for balance, her mental spool tightly wound.

"Need anything else?" Gah. Why would she ask a question she already knew the question to?

Burt appraised with a condescending smirk, relishing the total control. His dead glare quickly returned to his electronic preoccupation. She winced hoping he had relinquished his hold over her. He was a dog owner deciding whether to unclip a leash.

"Nope." He turned back to whatever mind numbing activity had enthralled him on his laptop.

Ding.

A refreshing burst of dewy, grease-free air brushed over her as the sliding door retracted. A cluster of drought-withered oak leaves scraped by on the sun-bleached blacktop, rattling as they went. She wobbled for a moment staring at the distant clouds of a passing squall. Rain had become a special thing this year, even a centimeter was celebrated by the browning lawns and drooping willows.

"Wait." Burt closed the laptop with a poignant click.

The doors closed in front of her.

"Nance." Burt's voice had an unusual break to it. "A moment."