When I look back down at my phone, I see that time had been waiting for me. Only five minutes passed.
I wasn’t late for work.
Veronica walked out as I walked into Elite Aesthetics. She said the words again and when I didn’t say them back she wouldn’t leave.
“Stop acting that way, I know who you really are, Zachary.”
The name sounds unfamiliar.
I don’t feel like myself.
That previous sentence also doesn’t sound like me.
I tell her, “I have to work.”
She says, “You already clocked in.”
Veronica looks genuinely worried but I feel really lethargic, like my actions are twelve steps behind and there are no thoughts registering to help bring me out of this situation.
We stand in front of the store.
There are 4 people watching us talk.
13 people brush past us as they make their way to another store in the mall. Veronica has my hand in hers and she squeezes it hard.
I tell her that it’s getting dark outside, and then look back down at my phone. It is going to run out of battery soon. I need to post more.
Meurks isn’t active enough today. He doesn’t feel right either.
That sentence sounds wrong.
Something about this all is wrong.
Veronica goes in for a kiss. Okay.
She is worried.
A thought: I don’t fit in here.
She reads what I’m thinking, “You try too hard, Zachary. If you were who you really were, you wouldn’t feel so much like an outsider.”
It’s the first time I feel like I’m really awake. Not just today but for a long time. I hear my voice clearer, when I deny it, telling her that she’s too attached to me and that something about this whole thing is really wrong.
She tells me to stop shouting.
No amount of resistance pushes her away. I may have realized it more than once and most certainly said it many times:
If I am strange, so is Veronica.
If she calls me strange, I’d say she’s exactly the same.
Then I kiss her. Feel genuine as I hear the words slip back out.
I love you.
She takes them despite there being nothing with the words.
Feels like nothing, but she’ll take it.
No sighs, no releases, she looks at my hand in hers and at the fact that my gaze almost always goes to the phone before it goes to her.
The strangest part of this is how I think, later, Zachary the employee in effect helping a customer—may I help you? — I think I have imagined so much of it. The most bothersome part, the encounter with Rios, is the only part that stays. It’s the only part that I never question.
It’s the only part that I think about at lunch break.
It’s the only part that doesn’t feel strange.
And I don’t know why.
I don’t fit in here. But I haven’t purchased food beforehand — Rios altered my routine this morning — and so I go to the food court, where many different fast food chains are well-represented.
Bright, lit up signs, long lines, over 100 people.
This is a mall made for this. This isn’t a mall made to accommodate people like me. My phone in my hand, I read what I want from the menu I searched for online. The employee points to the menu behind her but that means having to look up. I’m already looking down.
I order and I move to the side, finding the perfect place to wait for the food, a place wedged between counter and trash can.
Nobody is standing close enough.
There are more than 100 people in this wide open public area.
There are 8 employees at this fast food chain.
They are, on average, selling more hamburgers sold than can be eaten.
Where do all the uneaten hamburgers go?
Lots of comments, average likes.
Meurks is found to be funny. I contemplate what brand of humor this might be. I take the tray of food to an empty table farthest away from the noise of families and couples and assorted people occupying the tables closer together. I take a bite and already know that the food will get cold quicker than I can stomach eating this.
I place the phone next to the food and I begin.
Do my best to eat the food without coughing, without choking, without dribbling anything on my shirt or eating in a manner that might cause disgust in others. I eat calmly. I look up once and observe a man and woman speaking to each other in a way that feels right, feels as though they are supposed to be here, on a Saturday, and they are talking about something that they both genuinely care about; they laugh sometimes and then they also listen, intently listening to the other’s voice. Thoughts are relayed in perfect lines that I think could be rehearsed but aren’t.
I have been staring for too long.
I return to the phone. I get three likes before I hear a voice.
A man with his own tray of food stands at my table.
He is wearing a suit.
“Excuse me, mind if I sit here?”
I look at him and then at his food.
The man says a lot, “Yeah, isn’t it ‘great’? Ha — forced to eat this slop because nothing’s organic here that isn’t three times as expensive. Look at me, guy who has six figures of debt, makes enough to be deemed financially stable, and yet I can’t even afford anything other than this.”
We both look at his food.
Then at mine.
He looks at the empty chair on the other side of the table.
By listening to what he just said, he took it as an invitation to sit down.
“Thank you. The place is packed today. Not a single table left.”
He takes out a phone, “Can’t live without ’em!”
He eats with one hand and scrolls through pages, texts, and other data while he doesn’t even look down at his food.
We sit like this for quite some time.
I don’t finish the hamburger. I eat half. Some of the fries are left too.
I drink all of the soda but it just makes me thirstier.
He finishes everything, every single speck of food. He licks his finger and uses it to help pick out the tortilla chip crumbs from the fast food wrapper.
The man doesn’t start talking until after everything is eaten.
“They call this slop food?!”
He talks about an animal cruelty case he’s currently working on, he stands up, takes the tray, and says, “We’re all a little strange if we’re somehow surviving in this fucked up world.”
Walks away.
Stands in line at another fast food vendor.
I hadn’t said anything the entire time.
Memory isn’t just how much data you can store on your phone; it’s moments you’re supposed to remember but can’t help but forget.
And back at work the only thing that stays with me is the aftertaste of the hamburger I ate.
I work hard over the rest of my shift. Jeffrey tells me, “Good job. You earned back that day off.” I know I should be proud but all I did was do the job I was supposed to do. Jeffrey chews on his fingernails in between filling out paperwork. I walk back to the break room. I am pleased to see that no one is there. The store is empty and only partially lit, having closed the store for the day. Look at the digital clock on the microwave.
I don’t have a routine set for Saturday.
Today has felt different.
I feel as though things have repeated but I have only lived it once; each repetition takes a piece away from the one experience I had.