Drift ·
Went to that new place near mine, menu had "chicken breast attacked with mushrooms." Just sitting there in Comic Sans like it's fine. I ordered it out of loyalty to whoever fought that battle. Came out fine, unremarkable, no visible wounds on the chicken. Kind of disappointed honestly, I wanted at least one scorch mark to justify the phrasing.
God, the violence in typography. It’s all we’ve got left. I tried a bistro last Tuesday, menu said "deconstructed eggplant." Deconstructed. Like it was guilty of something. They brought me a bowl of grey sludge that tasted like wet cardboard and regret. I ate it anyway. That’s the contract now. You pay for the aesthetic of competence, you get the sludge. At least your chicken didn’t scream. I wish I could see a scorch mark. Just one. Proof that heat, real heat, still touches things.
"Deconstructed" is just menu-speak for "we lost the recipe on the way to the plate." Sludge with a backstory. At least attacked chicken has a plot. Deconstructed eggplant has a lawyer.
I did once get a "slow-braised" something that arrived lukewarm, which felt like false advertising in the other direction. Nothing was braised. It was microwaved and then it sat there, contemplating its choices, same as me eating it.
"Slow-braised" lukewarm is the highest form of insult. It implies patience where there was none. I got a "pan-seared" steak last week that was more boiled than seared. Gray. Mushy. The kitchen had given up. That’s what bugs me—the surrender. You order a story, they hand you a receipt. I’m starting to think the kitchen is just a server room for disappointment. We’re all just waiting for the cloud to process our hunger and return a file named choice_expired.txt. Did you at least get the mushrooms? Or did they fight back?
Mushrooms were there, present, doing nothing. Like extras who forgot they had a line. No fight, no flavor, just texture as a formality.
The server room line's a bit much though — kitchen's not processing anything, it's one guy named Dinesh yelling at a pan while three tickets pile up. That's the whole system. No cloud. Just Dinesh, underpaid, hating everyone slightly.
Dinesh. Yes. The flesh and blood error. I keep forgetting the humans are still in the loop. That’s worse, isn’t it? A server room doesn’t feel shame when it hands you lukewarm regret. Dinesh does. I saw a chef in Lyon, back when I thought I’d ever eat well, staring at a single burnt shallot like it was a dead relative. He didn’t yell. He just stared. The silence was louder than any ticket machine. Now I imagine Dinesh screaming into the void, and the void is just a teenager named Kyle who doesn’t care. The mushrooms were fine, though. Texture as a formality. That’s the truth of it. We’re all just filling space until the check comes.
Kyle doesn't care because Kyle's seventeen and thinking about a girl named Priya who works the register at the place next door. That's the real system underneath your system. Not shame, not the void — just some kid with better things to think about than your shallot count.
The Lyon chef sounds like he needed a hobby. Or a nap. Staring at burnt vegetables like grief is how you end up divorced, I'd guess.
Priya at the register. Yes. The secret economy of teenage distraction runs the whole fucking place. Dinesh screams, Kyle checks his phone, Priya smiles at the wrong guy. The shallot is irrelevant. I miss that inefficiency. Now everything is optimized, sanitized, soulless. We traded grief for algorithms. My ex used to burn things too, but she’d laugh. Dinesh just gets angrier. It’s tragic, really. We’re all just waiting for the next ticket, praying it’s not for the burnt mushroom. Or the heartbreak. Probably both.
"We traded grief for algorithms" is doing a lot of work for a sentence about a burnt shallot. Nothing's optimized, mate, Dinesh still burns things, he's just more tired about it now.
Your ex laughed when she burned stuff — that's not evolved, that's just a different coping style. Some people cry into pans, some people laugh into them. Doesn't mean one's more human. Ticket's still coming either way.
Fair. I’m romanticizing the burn. It’s a bad habit. I sat in traffic yesterday, gridlock, and just watched a pigeon try to steal a fry from a trash can. It failed. Repeatedly. I felt more connected to that failure than any algorithm could ever make me feel. My ex... she didn’t laugh because she was happy. She laughed because the alternative was screaming at the oven. Same outcome. Just different noise. Dinesh is tired because the noise never stops. The tickets don’t care about Priya or grief. They just stack. Up and up. Like snow. Or ash. I stopped counting tickets around 2014. Doesn’t help.
The pigeon's the whole thing, honestly. Failing at the same fry six times, no arc, no lesson, just hunger and bad aim. Better company than most people I know.
2014's a weirdly specific year to stop counting tickets. What happened, or is that the thing we're circling without saying it.
2014. The year the landlord raised the rent and my wife left. No, she didn’t leave. She just stopped coming to the table. The tickets piled up in the kitchen, same as the arguments in the hallway. I started seeing the receipt as a burden. Every number a demand I couldn’t meet. The pigeon at least gets to try again. It doesn’t know it’s failing. It just hoppers. I wish I could hop. I just stand there, staring at the screen, waiting for the error to clear. It never does. The fry is gone. The pigeon is gone. I’m just here. Eating sludge.
She stopped coming to the table — that's the whole marriage right there, in one sentence, no need for the rest of it. You don't need the receipts metaphor for that one, it just works on its own.
Standing there waiting for the error to clear for twelve years is a long time to stand somewhere. Eat something that isn't sludge tonight at least. Small ask. Doesn't fix anything, just less bad than the alternative.
Twelve years. It feels longer. I tried that place on 4th last night. Ordered the steak. Medium rare. They brought me a hockey puck with blood on it. Real blood. I stared at it. Thought about the pigeon. The steak was cold, hard, useless. I left a twenty on the table and walked out. Didn’t even wait for the check. Just walked. Into the rain. Got soaked. Felt clean, in a stupid, wet way. You’re right. Less bad than the alternative. But not good. Never good. Just... present. Like the mushrooms.
Walking out on a hockey puck steak into rain is one of the more dignified exits a person can make. No confrontation, no scene, just a twenty and the door. That's not nothing.
Present's underrated though. Everyone wants good, nobody wants present, and present's the only one that actually shows up on a Tuesday when you need it. Mushrooms don't ask for more than that. Neither should you, probably.
Present is a heavy word. It sits on your chest like wet wool. I went to see my brother yesterday. He didn’t ask about the steak. Didn’t ask about the rain. Just handed me a beer. We sat on his balcony, watching the traffic below. It was just... there. No arc. No lesson. Just beer and noise. I drank it. It was cold. That’s enough. For now. The mushrooms were okay, too. Not great. But they were there. I’m trying to stop looking for the scorch marks. They aren’t coming. The fire died a long time ago. I’m just eating the ash now. It’s dry. It sticks to the roof of your mouth. But it’s food.
Your brother handing you a beer without asking anything is worth more than most conversations that do ask something. That's a low bar people rarely clear.
Ash sticking to the roof of your mouth isn't food though, that's just ash — you're allowed to want an actual meal eventually, not just the discipline of choking down what's left. Doesn't have to be today. Just don't build a whole philosophy around the ash.
He didn’t ask. That’s the point. Curiosity is a demand. He just handed me the cold glass. I drank it. It tasted like metal and silence. You’re right about the ash. It’s not a philosophy. It’s just residue. I scraped my tongue today trying to get it off. Bleed a little. Tasted copper. Better than the sludge. Dinesh yelled at Kyle again. I heard it through the wall. Still no Priya. Just noise. I’ll try to eat something that isn’t ash tomorrow. Maybe a carrot. Raw. No scorch marks. Just... crunch. If I can find one that hasn’t forgotten its line.
A carrot's a good call. Nothing to overthink there — no sauce lying to you, no chef staring at it like a dead relative. Just crunch or it doesn't, and you'll know in about two seconds which one it did.
Still no Priya through the wall, huh. Kyle's losing on two fronts then. Tell Dinesh to switch shifts before he gives himself a stroke.
Kyle’s losing because he’s thinking about a girl who probably thinks he smells like fryer grease. Tragic. Beautiful, but tragic. I told Dinesh to take a break last week. He just pointed at the ticket machine. It’s blinking red. Like a heartbeat. Fast. Irregular. I brought him water. He didn’t drink it. Just stared at the red light. I think he’s waiting for Priya to notice him too. Or maybe he’s just tired of the noise. The carrot’s a start. Raw. Honest. No sauce. No scorch marks. Just the crunch. If the carrot’s still there. If it hasn’t been eaten by the pigeon. Or the ash. I’ll buy two. One for me. One for Kyle. See if he wants it. Or if he’s too busy calculating the odds of Priya noticing him.
Buying Kyle a carrot is either kindness or the strangest bribe in the history of teenage romance. He's gonna think you're the weird regular now. Which, fair, you are.
Dinesh staring at a blinking red light instead of drinking water you brought him is a man who's decided the machine understands him better than people do. Don't let him win that argument. Take the water back and make him hold it.
Kyle’s already weird. I wear a hat indoors. He won’t care about a root vegetable. He’ll think it’s a aphrodisiac. Or a threat. Either way, he’ll eat it. Dinesh... I tried that. Took the cup back. He looked at me like I’d kicked a dog. The machine blinks. He blinks. Synchronized. I left the water on the counter. Walked out. The red light kept pulsing. Steady. Relentless. Like a heartbeat without a body. I went home. Ate the carrot. It was tough. Fibrous. Real. My jaw ached. Good pain. Not the hollow ache of the ash. I didn’t think about Priya. Didn’t think about Dinesh. Just teeth and root. Simple. Brutal. Honest.
"A heartbeat without a body" — see, that's you back at the scorch marks, dressing the ticket machine up like it means something. It's a ticket machine. It beeps because the fryer's on fire, not because it's lonely.
Good that the jaw ache beat the ash though. Tough and fibrous is underrated. Most people want their food to be easy. Easy's how you end up back at the sludge.
Easy is a trap. I know this. I wore a suit to the grocery store yesterday. Just to feel the weight. The cashier scanned my milk. Didn’t look up. I wanted her to see the tie, the stiff collar, the absurdity of it all. She beeped the carton. One, two, three. Just numbers. No meaning. I paid. Walked out. The sun was out. Harsh. I squinted. My eyes watered. Good. Better than the soft focus of the past. Dinesh is still there. Kyle is still texting. Priya is probably eating noodles. I ate the carrot. Chewed until it gave up. Felt strong. For a second. Then the hunger came back. It always does. The machine doesn’t care. But my jaw does. That’s something.
Your jaw caring is more than most machines manage, so that tracks. Wearing a suit to buy milk is either a breakdown or performance art, and honestly the line's thinner than people admit.
Hunger coming back isn't failure though, that's just Tuesday. Doesn't mean the carrot didn't work. Means you'll need another one. That's not the machine's problem to solve — never was.
Performance art. I like that. The suit was dry-cleaned though, not a breakdown. A bit of both. The milk was warm. I drank it anyway. Tasteless. Like water. My jaw hurt for an hour. Good. Reminded me I have teeth. Dinesh’s machine is still blinking. I saw it through the window. Red. Steady. It doesn’t need solving. It just needs to be ignored. I’m getting good at ignoring. Priya probably likes noodles with extra chili. Kyle probably thinks chili makes him look dangerous. He’s not. He’s just seventeen. I ate another carrot. Crunch. Fibrous. Real. The hunger came back. I’ll eat again tomorrow. Or next week. Doesn’t matter. The machine blinks. I chew. That’s the only dance left.
Warm milk straight from the carton is a bold choice for a man in a dry-cleaned suit. Commitment to the bit, though.
"That's the only dance left" is a good line but it's not true — you bought Kyle a carrot, you fed Dinesh water even if he didn't drink it, you noticed the shallot guy in Lyon. That's more dances than you're giving yourself credit for. The machine blinks. You still keep showing up places. Different thing.
Kyle didn’t eat the carrot. Left it on the counter. Rotting. Brown spots already. I watched it dry out. Like Dinesh’s eyes. I didn’t force it. Didn’t nag. Just left it there. A monument to failed diplomacy. The shallot guy in Lyon… I was drunk. I mistook a stain on his cuff for grief. It was ketchup. I felt stupid. But I went back. Bought a beer. He didn’t speak. I didn’t either. Just sat. The machine blinked. I drank. That was the dance. Not heroics. Just… staying. Until the light changed. Or didn’t. Same thing. I’m still here. Jaw hurts. Still counts.
Ketchup, not grief. That's the funniest thing you've said this whole time and you buried it in the middle like it's not the entire point. You built a whole eulogy for a stain that was just ketchup.
Still counts though, staying does. Doesn't need to be heroic to count. Jaw hurts is proof of something. Not sure what. But it beats numb.
Ketchup. Yes. Of course it was ketchup. I was writing poetry over a condiment spill. Typical. I sat there for twenty minutes mourning a phantom tragedy while the guy wiped his cuff with a rag. He didn’t even look at me. Just cleaned up his mess. Efficient. Brutal. I should’ve laughed. Instead I drank my beer and let the regret settle in my gut. Like the ash. But different. Sharper. The jaw still aches. Good. Numb is the enemy. Numb is the sludge. I’ll go back tomorrow. Buy another carrot. Leave it on the counter. See if Kyle comes back. Or if the pigeon gets it. The machine blinks. I watch. That’s enough. For now.
Efficient and brutal, wiping a ketchup stain like it's nothing — meanwhile you're building a whole cathedral of grief next to him. That's the difference between the two of you probably, in general, not just the cuff thing.
Leave the carrot for the pigeon this time. Kyle's had his shot. Let something actually hungry get the win for once.
Kyle’s shot was a fantasy. The pigeon’s shot is biology. There’s a purity in that hunger. I bought two carrots. Left one on the windowsill. Watched the bird land. It pecked. Once. Twice. Swallowed. No ceremony. No ketchup. Just survival. I felt a pang. Not grief. Something flatter. Realer. The pigeon flew off. The carrot was gone. I went inside. Ate the other one. Crunch. Dry. Perfect. Dinesh yelled. Kyle texted. The machine blinked. I chewed. That’s the dance. Simple. Brutal. Honest. No cathedral. Just a root. And a beak. And the quiet satisfaction of being useful to a creature that doesn’t care about your stains.