Fast Food Fiction
Volume I, Issue 03
12 June 2017
© Larry Michael Garmon Swain
All Rights Reserved
0837—0926
1,118 Words
Kundalini Rising
by
LMG Swain
“I just don’t let anyone call me thief.”
“J’accuse!” the man repeated to the clerk behind the counter of the Kwiky In-N-Out. His face was frozen in anger and shock, his mouth a large O, and his eyes two smaller Os. “You, monsieur, are a chee—ter and a teef!”
“Damn foreigners,” the clerk muttered. “You want the packs or not?”
“Mon dieu!” the man pushed out between his two thin and chapped lips, his face rigid in a wooden scream. “Here—here iz you damn-ed blude mooney, you elderberry fart!” The customer threw two fives and one one onto the counter. He dug in his pocket and then threw a fist full of coins on the counter. “Suck on that, you son of a pig’s eye.” The customer grabbed up the two packs of unfiltered Camels, turned, and stomped away.
“Hey, man: I don’t set the friggin’ prices—I just sell ’em.”
The customer half turned as he reached the double doors of the convenience store and flipped off the clerk. He would have slammed the door if the heavy-duty surface mounted spring door closer would have let him. He held the door opened, and a whiff of the 112 degree heat swept through the store and across his face. The customer flipped off the clerk a second time.
“You’re not my type!” The clerk swept the bills and the coins into his left hand, opened the register, and deposited the money in the respective slots. “Got to get me a better damn job,” he muttered.
He reached under the counter, pulled out several cartons of various cigarette brands and began restocking the cigarette kiosk that floated about his head and above the counter. A swoosh of air and the tinging of the bell told him the door had opened. He continued to stock the cigs in their respective slots as he lowered his eyes to see who had entered. He half expected that crazed Frenchman to have come back to taunt him some more. Instead, his girlfriend walked in.
“We’ve got to talk,” she said as she reached the counter. “I want you to meet Sydney.”
It was with the introduction that the clerk saw the short blonde standing just to the side and behind Marsha. They were holding hands.
“Is this the jerk?” Sydney said by way of introducing herself.
“The jerk’s name is Trevor,” Marsha said. No, Marsha didn’t really say “jerk”, she said “clerk”, but the way she said “clerk” she might as well have said “jerk” in all its distaining glory.
Trevor stopped loading the cigs in their respective upper slots.
“Uh, is there something wrong?” Trevor said.
“Trevor?” Sydney said and then snorted. “What kind of geek frat boy name is ‘Trevor’?”Sydney stepped around Marsha and pushed her bare mid-drift into the counter’s edge so a small fleshy muffin top draped over the linoleum counter. She bent over so her halter top tipped opened and her cleavage winked at him. “I’ve always wanted to say that to you,” Sydney said with a wink, and then with pouty thick lips mewed a kiss at Trevor.
Trevor looked into Sydney’s eyes, but his peripheral vision was zeroed in on Sydney’s small but well contoured and shapely bust. “Do I know you?” Trevor said.
“That’s what we have to talk about,” Marsha said. She snapped her fingers in front of Trevor’s face, pointed two fingers at Trevor’s eyes, and then pointed the same two fingers at her eyes. “I’m in love with Sydney, and I want to end our relationship amicably. I don’t want no friggin’ drama, okay?”
Trevor raised both hands to his face and pressed them to his cheeks. His mouth was well-rounded into a large O. He forced his eyes into large well-rounded Os as well. Over did it, he thought. She’s going to know I’m faking this surprise-break-up announcement. He had seen it coming for weeks: The unreturned phone messages. The unreturned text messages. No more Liking on Facebook. No more FB Smileys, Laughter, Heart, Wow, or even Crying emojis. Nothing on any social media for weeks. He knew the relationship was over long before Marsha’s dramatic entrance hand-clasping Sydney.
Still, Sydney looked familiar. Like an old friend from high school, though Trevor was still in high school, at least for one more year.
“Stop your showboating,” Sydney said. “You always were a bitch about showboating.” Sydney smiled.
“Sidney?” This time, the large O mouth and the two large O eyes were real.
“Miss me?” she said.
“I thought you moved to Minneapolis.”
“Oh, I did, lover. I did.” Sydney leaned up from the counter, and her boobs sank back into the halter top. She caught a slight look of disappointment on Trevor’s face. “You always were a salacious little bitch. I remember you telling me about the time you and Marsha—”
“Sydney’s transfemale,” Marsha said. “Still in hormone therapy. Spells her name with a Y instead of an I now.” Marsha looked at Sydney the way she used to look at Trevor. “I fell in love with Sidney before he moved away, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. When she came back to town two weeks ago, I couldn’t help it.” Marsha held both of Sydney’s hands and turned her head to Trevor. “Look, you’re not to blame. We were getting boring. Sydney—the old Sidney—was funny and exciting. Then he moved away and came back as Sydney. Even more funny and more exciting.”
Somehow, Trevor didn’t feel vindicated. Although he knew it was culturally and politically incorrect, he hated Sydney, both versions, and silently prayed that all three of them would fall into the burning pits of hell as the infralapsarians foretold. He hated Sydney most of all for stealing his girlfriend—twice. First as a male and then again as a female. What kind of pathetic loser am I?
A swoosh of air and the tinging of the bell. Trevor looked beyond the happy couple: Mr. Jesus was coming for his mid-day cup of water.
“I’ll drop your stuff off at your house before we move,” Marsha said.
“Move?”
“Yeah,” Sydney said. “Marsha’s moving to Minneapolis with me, to be with me in the final metamorphosis.”
She leaned towards Marsha, and they kissed. Then they turned and walked out the double glass doors, together, hand-in-hand, into the sweltering southwest Oklahoma heat.
Trevor was in the middle of a thought—Does Marsha and Sydney liking each other make them gay now, even though Sydney was once Sidney?—when Mr. Jesus sauntered up to the counter with his large cup of ice and water, his eyes wide and his skin burnt from preaching on the skillet-hot street corner. “Hell has opened up!”
“No charge,” Trevor said.
“Bless you, my child,” Mr. Jesus said as he pushed open the door, a gust of hell hot Oklahoma wind sweeping into the convenience store.
The End
Words and Phrases used or suggested for this tale. For this issue, I posted the picture you see with this tale and asked for words, descriptions, phrases et cetera about the picture.
- Infralapsarian —a Calvinist holding the view that God’s election of only some to everlasting life was not originally part of the divine plan, but a consequence of the Fall of Man (random dictionary word)
- J’accuse—I accuse (random dictionary word)
- Vindicate—clear of blame or suspicion (random dictionary word)
- Salacious—conveying undue interest in or enjoyment of the subject (random dictionary word)
- Bust—a sculpture of a person’s head, shoulders, and chest; the measure of woman’s chest: submitted by Michael Sullivan
- The wooden scream—caption submitted from Kylee Williamson
- Spacey—out of touch with reality: submitted by Terry Cyphers
- Showboat—one who tries to attract attention by conspicuous behavior: submitted by Amber Morris
- My face when I get the price at checkout—caption submitted by whiskey1795 (Instagram)
- When you knew the relationship was coming to an end, but you still have to act surprised: caption submitted by Aubrey.lynn223 (Instagram)
- The face you make when the plot twist you knew was coming still surprises you: caption submitted by Aubrey.lynn223 (Instagram)
Comfort Reading for the Mind 