The Daily Grind

“Hey!” She turns. Her face is pale, her eyes bloodshot, her tangled hair hangs over her face casting a shadow on her eyes. Staying home for over a year had taken its toll. Her brother, a young man, car keys in hand, approaches from the far end of the long apartment building hallway. “Are you ready to go?” 

    She snaps back into reality, though her mind wasn’t ever wandering. She is standing in the doorway of her apartment, clutching half a doughnut tightly in her hand, strawberry filling trickling down her arm. She nods towards her brother, licking the remnants of the pastry off of her wrist, and the two walk slowly down the hall to a staircase. She walks behind him, and he looks over his shoulder often, as if making sure she’s still there. She hears the clip-clop of his leather shoes on the ground as they reach the first floor. He pushes open the glass door letting her duck under his arm, and pulls his coat from around his waist, sliding it over his shoulders.

She walks out into the parking lot in front of the complex and squeezes through the rows of cars until she finds a dark green Jeep with two large scratches on the side, and a shattered window. He follows close behind, and hops into the driver's seat while she clips her seat belt in the back. The car rumbles to life, spewing black smoke from the exhaust pipe. She lays her head on the back of the seat, and the car screeches and bangs down the road for a few minutes, until they stop in front of a tall marble building. She gets out of the car, and he follows. They walk into the building, as he remotely locks the car door behind him. Inside the building, the floors are carpeted with velvet and there is a glass desk in the middle of the room sitting next to a large wooden staircase. He walks over to the desk, and she reluctantly follows.

He rings a bell sitting on the desk. “Excuse me? Is anyone here?” 

She turns to see a woman coming down the staircase. He waves the woman over, and rings the bell again. 

“How can I help you?” The woman asks.

“This young lady is here for the job interview you mentioned to me on the phone,” he says. 

“Of course, right this way,” the lady says, tapping her fake nails on the desk. Clik, clik, clak.

He enters the room first, a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. She follows him in, and sits in one of the chairs tucked into a large round table covered with a silk cloth. She shoots him a half smile, and he leaves the room and waits just outside the door, closing it as he exits. The woman introduces her to a short man sitting in the chair across from her, then leaves the room. 

“So,” says the man, Mr. Beaumont. “You want to be the chef here? Can I ask you why?”

She thinks for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “I don’t like to cook,” She says, surprising herself. “But the oven on, the pans clattering, it’s like my happy place.”

Mr. Beaumont turns to stare at her. “Well, your reputation precedes you. When can you start?”

She checks the clock on the wall. “ Now.”

****

“Stop! That’s the chili sauce! Stop adding so much salt to the soup! This is a restaurant, it’s not rocket science!” She finds herself screaming and bumping into people in the small kitchen. After the year out of work, she forgot how stressful the kitchen could be. Trying to navigate her way through the room, she hits her head on the door of an open cabinet. Hard. Her feet slide from under her, and she is on the ground, with multiple people crouching down to examine her. 

“Owwww…” She moans.  

“Zengo! Take over!” Yells a man to the Sous chef.

“I’m fine, guys,” she says. “I…” And the world fades to black. 

****

She wakes up in a dark room, vines curling up the walls. This felt too real to be a dream, but like nothing she had experienced before. 

Mr. Beaumont stood in the far corner of the room, yelling over and over, “When can you start? When can you start? When can you start?” She shrinks back, even though he is over one hundred feet away.  

She sees a glass desk in the corner across from Mr. Beaumont with a chorus of at least one hundred hands, each sporting thick, black nails, tapping the counter. Clik, clik, clak. Clik, clik, clak. 

“No, no, no…” She moans.

“Zengo! Zengo! Zengo! Zengo!” A voice calls just near her ear. 

“Make it stop!” She yelled. “What has this job done to me?” 

Clik, clik, clak, clik, clik, clak, when can you start, when can you start, Zengo, Zengo, Zengo, Zengo! Too much, too much, too much. She rushes to a door on the other side of the room. She grasps the knob, and twists as hard as she possibly can, but the knob doesn’t budge. She drops to the ground in the middle of the room, hot, sticky tears running down her cheeks. 

“Please just stop!” She squeaks. “Please just stop…” 

BAM! A slap on her cheek. She is awake, still on the ground in the kitchen. 

“S-sorry,'' says Zengo, the Sous chef. “You were all shriveled , and breathing hard, I thought…” 

“It’s okay,” She says. “Now let’s get back to work! People are waiting!” 

The kitchen explodes back into chaos as the chefs prepare the courses for the expectant diners. Waiters pile dishes onto trays, and rush out the swinging doors to the calm quiet seating area just outside the chaotic loud kitchen. 

After the last of the entrees is carried out of the room, she lets out a breath that she hadn’t known she was holding in. She thanks the workers, and pitches in during the clean up. A few cooks say good-night and file out through the back doors while she stays in the kitchen. She puts the pans and pots back on they’re hangers, sprays the counter with cleaner, sweeps the floor, and cleans up spills all around the room. She pulls her apron over her head, and hangs it in a closet with the others. Wiping her forehead, she takes her hair out of the tight bun and hair net it had been in, and lets her whole body relax. Once the cleaning is complete, she exits the kitchen, and walks through the carpeted halls to the main entrance where he is waiting. 

“Well, is the job everything you dreamed of?” He asks her.

“Now I remember why I quit my old job,” She says, sighing heavily. “This is my worst nightmare.”