He Fights For His Meals

The radio crackled an old Who song, and Simon fiddled with the dial a little to get it to come in clearer. He liked this song, and since he had the kitchen all to himself after closing, he could listen to whatever he wanted to without the dishwasher constantly setting it to a rap station while the chef de partie tried to set it to country. He was doing some mindless prep work, making a chicken stock out of the bones from the main courses, slicing up carrots, potatoes, and celery for the soup that they would serve in a few days, once the stock had been properly set. The worst was getting all the bones separated, slicing up the bodies. Simon really didn’t like what he was doing.

Working by himself was the only way Simon could stomach his job. He absolutely hated it. He’d always loved to cook and he had a refined palate. When he decided to go to catering school after getting his high school degree, he thought he’d found the right career path. But then he got into a real kitchen at a busy restaurant. And during his first busy service, when he had the orders for five different tables and had to get them all out within minutes of each other, the reality of his job hit him and he hated it and wanted out. The atmosphere of constant pressure was not for him. He talked the boss into just letting him come in after hours and do all of the prep work for the next day. The rest of the kitchen staff was in favor of this because it meant they could come in later. Simon loved it because the pressure to get things ready quickly was gone. But he knew this was a temporary fix. He still hated his job, he just hated it a little less. Even the prep work was a miserable chore. Simon, even though he’d worked in cooking for less than three weeks, wanted nothing to do with the job ever again.

The opening keyboard section of the song was revving up and the drums were coming in. Simon turned up the volume really loud. He loved this part. It totally jammed. Then the vocals came in.

Out here in the fields…

Daltrey finished the line and then the fight exploded around Simon. His bright blue irises dilated so wide that it looked liked he had no irises at all, only big black pupils swallowing all the light in the room. The large kitchen filled with horned demons, gnashing their fangs at every living thing they saw, including him. His jaw dropped and his hair stood on end.

“Stand still and watch,” came a whisper into his ear, as two black gloved hands landed on his shoulders. “You are safe, while we are here nothing can harm you,” the soothing voice said. But the calming words had no effect, every bit of adrenaline his body could make was dumping into his bloodstream. Every ounce of his body told him to run away as fast as he could. But the strong hands on his shoulders held him in place. He watched as dozens of men ran into the room, their bodies draped in black cloth, wielding long thin swords. They leapt and dashed about with incredible agility and poise. But the demons were just as strong and agile and they continually caught the men(ninjas)

“Is this really what I’m seeing?” Simon thought. “Ninjas fighting demons?” The battle raged and it didn’t always look like the Ninjas(men) had the upper hand. Simon’s eyes fixed in on a fight going near the deep fryers. A demon had one of the (ninjas/men) fighters by the throat and was trying to put his head into the boiling hot oil. The fighter’s face was contorted in agony and his sword was on the ground out of his reach.

I fight for my meals…

The fighter’s hand flailed out to his right slamming his open palm on the stainless steel prep table. The vibrations shook a sauce pan off a higher shelf and it landed within his reach. He took it and put it behind his head, filling it with a some of the oil from the fryer, then he pulled it forward and threw it all in the demons face. Its brown leathery skin began to boil and pulse and it let out a scream that was horrendous in its outrage.

The demons continued to flood the room, swarming everything with oppressive numbers. For every one of the black-clad swordsmen there were three of the brown, rocky armed hellions, gnashing and clawing and biting.

All throughout the room the fighters were losing their battles. They were being pinned up against walls and bitten and clawed. Their skin bitten off in large chunks, their blood pooling on the floor. A demon slashed the wrist of one fighter, sending a spray of blood into some strawberries that were sliced and prepped for tarts the next day.

Simon was panicking. What he saw before him was a slaughter, and the hands on his shoulder did nothing to calm him. He tried to get free to run away, but the hands held tight and locked him into place. “Nothing will harm you,” came the calm reassurance, wasted on Simon’s adrenaline filled ears. The carnage and gore and violence was getting to be too much. He gave up all as lost and prepared himself to be eaten alive. The fighters were going to lose and when they did, the demons would come for him next.

I don’t need to fight…

Another fighter and another demon were grappling on the floor near his oven with the chicken stock. The demon had the fighter down and was biting large chunks of skin off of his chest and arms. Another fighter ran to the aid of his friend and stabbed the demon in the back with his sword several times. The demon roared out and jumped to its feet. It grabbed out at the second fighter and caught his black clothes by the tip of its claws, shredding the fabric. The second fighter dodged the demons attempts to grab him, weaving and ducking as if his body weighed nothing, as if he were as weightless as the air. The demon made one final lunge for him, and he jumped upwards so high that the demon ended up only grabbing air. The demon let out a horrific yell of anger.

I don’t need to be forgiven…

And no sooner had the fighter leapt up into the air than he turned and looked at directly at Simon, making eye contact with the helpless frightened prep cook. What Simon saw on this fighters face was not anything like fear, anxiety, distress, or anger. The fighter looked Simon directly in the eye and let loose with a giant grin, a smile that said “Hell yeah!” And with that fleeting look of pure joy, the fighter vanished into thin air.

The radio over Simon’s head burst out with the next part of the song, the joyful energetic jam between the first verse and pre-chorus, the three chords, root-V-IV, winding up the energy level while letting out all the tension. What Simon felt in those exact seconds, led on by the completely out of place smile of the fighter, was pure energy. He was not happy. He was not ecstatic. He simply was. In the moment. No conscious thought. Just pure unedited energy. Keith, Pete, and John let loose with the big ringing distorted power chords that signaled the pre-chorus and Simon felt his heart ready to come out of his chest.

Don’t cry…

The demon looked upward to where the fighter had just been, bewildered by something he could not explain, twisting his head right and left like a dog when you pretend to throw the ball but you don’t, you just hide it in the palm of your hand.

The fighter reappeared behind the confused demon and with one quick slice, removed its head from it’s shoulders.

The men began fighting the demons one by one, turning the kitchen into an ancient battlefield. And the demons fought back hard, their claws tearing and cutting the warriors. Their teeth biting and stripping flesh, their numbers continuing to grow, appearing from somewhere that Simon’s eyes couldn’t catch. If he looked away from any spot of the kitchen, and then back, there would simply be more of them. But it no longer scared him. Now, it was just kind of cool.

Don’t raise your eye…

The fighters, outnumbered, bleeding, cut and injured, found their pace. Their swords began to dance around, maneuvered by newly energized muscles, tearing the demons apart, cutting arms from torsos and and hands from arms, ankles from shins and shins from thighs.

It’s only Teenage…

The Demons kept coming, the kitchen was awash in blood. The screams of demons and the triumphant yells of the fighters mixed together. But there was a giant smile on every single face of every single fighter. Cut, bleeding, losing, they loved what they were doing.

Wasteland…

The radio wound on, The Who jamming out. The fighters turned back the waves of demons. The kitchen filled with victory yells as the last one was cut in two.

“I’m sorry you had to see this,” came the voice over Simon’s shoulder. “They are getting more and more unpredictable. Keeping up with them is a very tough job.”

Simon was still dumbfounded. The hands on his shoulder whirled him around and a set of piercing slate gray eyes, the only visible part of the face, met his own bewildered baby blues.

“I’m sorry if I grabbed you too hard. Are you alright?” the man asked with all earnestness. Simon was having a little trouble hearing him over the blaring radio. The man reached up and shut it off.

“I said are you alright? Did anything cut you or bite you?”

Simon looked himself over, and, satisfied with a quick visual inspection, answered, “Yeah. Yeah I think I’m okay.”

“Good.” With that the man took his hands off Simon’s shoulders and let him move about of his own accord. Simon turned around, and astonished, saw that his kitchen had been almost completely cleaned, only in those places where blood had gotten on the food was there any trace that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

“We work well and quickly,” came the voice, “but we are very very busy tonight. I apologize that we could not get everything cleaned. It appears as though we ruined a lot of your food. I’m sorry for that. I suppose you’ll just have to remake it.”

“It’s okay,” said Simon, still trying to process the previous four minutes, “That’s all I do anyway.”

The man gave no response. Simon looked around to see the two way door that lead to the dining room swinging. He ran out into the dining room, hoping for another glimpse.

“HEY!” he yelled. But there was nothing. Simon was just about to give up when the man’s head popped in from the door leading out to the street.

“Yes?” He said.

“What was all that about?” Simon asked him.

The man looked Simon up and down and said, “We just love what we do.” And with that he shut the door and disappeared. Simon stood alone in the silence and darkness of the dining room a few minutes, staring blankly at nothing. Then he came to and walked back into the kitchen. He went about getting all of the damaged food thrown away so the he could prep it all over again. There was no way he would let the kitchen staff open up tomorrow with bloody vegetables in the bins.

~ by thethingswethink on March 31, 2008.