Fries and a Stranger To Go

Fries and a Stranger To Go

It is a Saturday and you have nothing to do, so you decide to walk down to a small convenience store for lunch and to catch up on your reading. It’s usually quiet there, so it is a nice place for reading while you eat; that is, as long as you are careful not to spill your lunch on your literature. As you are walking down the street to get there only two or three cars pass. Since you are not on a particularly busy street, this is not odd. However, you still feel like something is wrong for some reason.

You walk into the store parking lot and see a few more cars parked there than usual. You walk in through the doors and to find two or three people browsing the store, one guy mopping the floor and one guy selling lunch and working the till. You look behind you at the cars in the parking lot and see that there is about six cars parked and two bikes are locked on the bike rack. They are small bikes, but you did not see any kids in the store. You are about to ask someone about it but decide not to because you are hungry.

You go order some food and buy a coffee. Sitting at a table, you sip the coffee while you are waiting for your food to be ready. You set your coffee down and realize you’ve forgotten your book. So, you decide to buy a newspaper and read that instead. You take it up to the till, pay the cashier and then sit down to start reading your newspaper. You pick up your coffee and start sipping it again while reading the news.

After about five minutes, someone brings you a hot dog and four orders of french fries. You are hungry, but you also want to stay for a while and fries take a while to eat. You read and eat, not really paying attention to what’s happening around you. Time seems to slow and speed up randomly as you sip your coffee and eat your food. You finish your newspaper and put it back on the rack. You don’t really want to go home yet, so you pick up a new paper.

You seem to be watching yourself from outside your body, but you know this is impossible. You are still sitting there, reading the paper and eating your big lunch. Every now and then you switch papers until you finish your lunch. You have read the whole rack except for the last couple pages of the one in your hands now. You finish the paper and glance at your watch.

It’s been about six hours. You wonder how so much time had passed and look up, noticing that someone is sitting in the chair across from you. He looks familiar, but you can’t quite remember who he is. You stare at him for a couple of minutes and he just stares right back at you. You try to talk, but discover you can’t. The man smiles as he reaches across the table and put his hand on your forehead. It seems like everything is getting darker as your mind starts to slow down.