A quick intro: this is the first bit to this year's NaNo. I've been an editing fiend lately, and wanted to see if I've made the slightest dent...I may set up an Advanced Critique thread if anyone is interested in the rest of it. ^_^
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"How lonely sits the city that was once full of people!"
- Lamentations, 1:1
“How may I help you?"
A particularly disturbing person was standing in front of the Dairy Queen counter near the end of Carl’s shift––a rather large, middle-aged woman wearing hair curlers and sweatpants that were more sweat than pants. Faded plastic tubes were falling from her head one-by-one and scattering across linoleum.
“Hmm.”
She stood, tapping her foot. It was the size of a loaf of Wonder bread and was cruelly encaged within a pair of banana-colored Crocs. “What kind of ice cream you got?”
Carl plastered on his Customer Service smile-–the very one that had won him the job. “Our Blizzard of the Month is called ‘Halloween Dream’. It’s peanuts and candy corn on top of our delicious new caramel ice cream. It also comes with a festive holiday-themed spoon.” He pulled an extra from his pocket for demonstration––orange with a white smudge, supposedly a ghost. It bore an expression on its face that made it look nauseated, or severely depressed. Whatever it was, it always won over the kids.
“Hmm.”
“We also carry a variety of our classic Royal Treats, such as the Peanut Buster Parfait and Fudge Brownie Earthquake.”
“Hmm.”
“And if you would like to take treats home for the family, we have a wide selection of––“
“I live by myself.”
Something inside of Carl died. It felt a bit like his hope for humanity. “Well, if you would like to take a treat home for yourself, we have a wide selection of Frozen Cakes and Dilly Bars.”
“Hmm.”
With some effort, she folded her arms across her chest and gazed at the menu, jaw falling slack. At a length, she said, “You got vanilla?”
Carl bobbed his head enthusiastically. “We have vanilla, chocolate, twist, and then, for the holiday season––“
“I’ll have vanilla.”
He made some sort of false gung-ho hand gesture and whirled around. “What size would you like, ma’am?”
“Hmm.”
Carl’s mouth twitched. “We have small, medium, large, and Queen sizes.”
“What’s the biggest one?”
“Er…Queen size.”
“I’ll have that. Queen size.”
His hand hovered over towers of stacked containers––cones of various sizes, paper bowls and foam coffee cups. “Dish or––“ in his mind, he grimaced. “Cone?”
“Hmm.”
“I’d personally recommend the dish for the Queen size. It’s portable, and you can put it in the freezer for later.”
Carl didn’t wait for a response. He simply took the dish and slammed it beneath the soft-serve machine, twirling the ice cream to form his signature double-helix shape, humming something all the while. It was the only way to keep up the illusion that he was that chipper in reality.
For perhaps the first time in his life, he didn’t bother to ask about topping preference.
She was still staring at the menu, mouth agape, when he slid the dish out across the counter. “There you go, ma’am.”
She blinked. “Can I have one of them ghosty spoons?”
The total was three dollars and forty-six cents. She paid with a credit card and left, waddling, across the parking lot.
Carl sunk into the stool by the cash register. He would have held his head in his hands, but it was against Sanitation Codes and Standards to run your fingers through your hair, lest stray strands fall out and contaminate customers’ food. Carl was very prudent about the Sanitation Codes and Standards.
“Can we eat these?”
This was Mick, the Assistant Junior Manager, pointing to a Tupperware container of chocolate chips. Mick was chewing gum, something completely against the Sanitation Codes and Standards. Additionally, his uniform collar was askew and he was lacking the appropriate holiday “Booooo!” sticker on his nametag.
His impressively long title was meant to make up for the fact that there were really only three people who worked at the New Prague Dairy Queen: Mick, Carl, and Merv, who owned it. They shared nothing in common, save for jaded work ethics and the fact that their names all contained four letters.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Carl sighed. “You could spread typhoid, or something.”
Mick shrugged and popped the lid open with his thumb. He swallowed his gum and began to shove small bits of chocolate between his lips. “You hear about the new girl?”
“What?”
“There’s a girl transferring next month. She’s Koreanese, I think.”
He leaned up against the Soft Serve machine. It teetered slightly. Carl was fully prepared for the universe to lag into slow motion, for an appropriate Save the Soft Serve Machine From Certain Destruction dive.
“She’s Korean?”
“I don’t know. Something like that, you know? Some kind of freaky Asian chick.”
“Freaky Asian chick?” Carl pronounced the words carefully, with slight distaste.
Mick shook his head and threw a handful of little brown dots into the air. He opened his mouth and craned his neck to catch them.
He caught all but one. It rolled under the cash register. “I don't know, so stop asking questions. Okay?”
“Okay,” Carl said.
He listened to Mick chew and watched the minute hand on the clock slowly creep toward twelve. At the very moment it did, he reached over, and shut off the Open sign, the little neon reflection on the sidewalk disappearing as he did so.
All that remained lit on Main Street was the sign that flickered above the New Prague Runza, seeking to cater to hopelessly lost vagabonds––runaways from the fluorescence and orderly painted lines of the Interstate.
But they were a rare breed. This left a splotch of green and yellow on the vague prairie horizon, an electrically faulty reminder of all that had never prospered.
