Deadly Grits: The Dystopian Diner by Francesca Quarto

Deadly Grits: The Dystopian Diner by Francesca Quarto

The diner was set like a jewel in the surrounding ring of blackness. As it crunched under my boots, the sound of the gritty soil was magnified in the great void of endless night.  I was lost and knew I’d never find my way out of the deep valley. I laughed cynically to myself, when the delusion of hope flared at seeing something other than rocks and death. Hope that I’d be rescued before I turned into just another desiccated creature lying on the scorched ground.

I’d gone off the grid along with my companion of four years ago, long before the grid ceased to exist. If it wasn’t love, it was the closest thing to it, and our commitment to one another was unappareled in my experience among my human peers. That’s why we fled what was left of so-called society. I rejected the confines of their prohibitions and backward thinking, and we lost ourselves among the rocks and sand, the lava flows, frozen for millennia upon the face of the mountain we made home.

Our rough, though peaceful existence, ended when Champ was swept away in one of the fierce storms known to deluge the area as suddenly as they appeared.  The gullies become fast moving rivers through the dessert landscape, the waters carving out new paths in a headlong rush. Champ never had a chance to escape and I couldn’t find him until the next day. 

He was wrapped partially around a boulder of lava that looked like a chunk of a meteorite.  His arms jutting out from his sides as if trying to swim in the killing cross-current of gushing waters. When I prized him loose, I knew I could never repair the damage to his systems. What was left of his wiring was ripped out of his chest and coated with the fast-drying sediment. One of his legs had been torn off in his passage over the sharp lava rockface and I didn’t bother to search because my tools were not sophisticated enough to reattach it. I’d seen vultures circling overhead, leading me to his mangled body. As I got closer, I saw even the vultures rejected the pile of metal Champ was reduced to. It hit home like a Star Force laser; I was alone.

This state of isolation was not new to me, not since the world imploded, withering into a greenish-black ball in the heavens, when once it was the blue gem of the firmament.   The weight of a war on the environment led by the multi-national conglomerates, contributed exponentially to the poisoning of the body of the planet. The oceans and waters pumping life into the earth were poisoned, the air turned into a miasma of gases and particles and then, it died. This was followed quickly by whole countries, cultures, civilization itself, unravelling, until the face of humankind was nearly obliterated upon their home planet.

I went back after the cataclysm overtook life, visiting what was left of the university campus where I was a professor, before learning became irrelevant. Nothing but empty classrooms, overtaken by nature. Instead of looking out at the eager doctorial students in the Advanced Robotics Engineering class I taught, I saw prickly vines wrapped around chairs, with seats and desks filled with dirt blowing in from broken windows and cracked walls. A respected university for over two-hundred years, its beautiful grounds were filled with the detritus of war, famine, plague and every other Biblical curse found in that once famous book.

I stayed on the campus for a year, living in a room in a partially standing dorm, I took that time to scour the Robotics labs and finish my work on engineering a perfect, human-like robot. Why not? All my friends and family were dead, or dying. Some likely survived by joining the roving gangs of The Righteous Few, punishing any they believed created this Armageddon.  That meant any one they found teaching ideas conflicting with their own. They hated science because they feared it, like early men feared the lightening that lit their caves. The Few, ironically, rounded up the many. Every man and woman, every student advocate of learning and understanding the heavens, and they sent them to a hell many of them didn’t believe in. I escaped by hiding among the most ruined buildings, and when they left off their hunts, I began my year of work, an intimate quest to bring life to Champ. 

Champ kept me company and I returned to the wilds, leaving the university rotting like a corpse behind me. When he was destroyed, I began my own search of the wilderness, spread out like a dark blanket in every direction. That’s when I saw the bolt of light, the cloudy gleam of smoky stars off a metal surface. I was starving and cold, the vast night of the scorched land had sucked me dry of every ounce of energy. I felt devoid of the innate will to survive, but as a scientist my curiosity pushed me forward to investigate the unknown.

I approached the curved, aluminum sided diner with caution, having learned several painful lessons about traps set by The Righteous Few. They were nothing if not cunning. They nearly snared me in the university cafeteria once where I scavenged the vendor food, left open for the taking. I began to reach into the shelves for snack bars, but instead used a ruler to prod them out onto the floor. When the wood touched the third bar, a sharp blade shot out of the side of the machine, slicing the ruler in two. I was able to disarm the innocent looking machine and foil their plan to collect hands from unsuspecting survivors.

The heavens were void of bright stars, while the moon was lost under a thick layer of clouds filled with ash from the constant fire that consumed the husks of long dead trees and foliage.  Like a single-minded beast, enriched by this fuel, the flames devoured anything that stood, stuffing its red maw. 

In this Stygian night, I crept up to the door of the diner, the low lights from inside melting into the night like butter around its gleaming body. As I got closer, I saw the sign hanging on the door: WE NEVER CLOSE!   I backed away, while keeping it in sight, scrunching under a nearby overhang of granite, staying in shadow while studying the solitary form. 

I tried to look at the empirical evidence before moving closer. First, it looked brand new, resembling an oblong balloon fashioned to look like a hotdog, sitting atop the blackened ground.  Then, there was the light, albeit only a dull glow coming from inside, the windows obscured by heavy condensation. That moisture alone was enough to have me licking my lips.  Lastly, the sign posted on the door was farfetched, indicating a never-ending cornucopia of food inside, and that wasn’t remotely possible in a land barren of all growing life.   Wasn’t this one of mankind’s hardest lessons…where there is no forest, no grassland, no clean water, no fertile earth, there is no food?

In the end, curiosity muscled out any logical response that I probably was walking into a trap. I scooted out from under the granite shelf, coming toward the diner indirectly. I approached from the side, hoping to see through a patch of glass before committing to entering. Crouching under the window, I raised up just enough to peer over the sill. The moisture was not as thick here, further away from the hot kitchen I assumed and I began to scan the long, narrow confines of the interior.

The table on the other side of my glass periscope, was fortunately empty, and so were the other booths. There were three male patrons, sitting at the counter on those old-fashioned bar stools that always looked too small for anyone’s butt, covered in well-worn black leather. The floor of the diner was a pattern of black and white linoleum squares and the long counter was a freckled white Formica; the same material that was the rage over a century ago. Though none of that was overly alarming; diners were supposed to bring feelings of nostalgia to their patrons. There was something stiff and unnatural about these customers though, that raised the hackles on my neck. I read the Specials for the Day written in a neat cursive on a chalkboard: Three eggs & Skirt Steak with Lou’s Deadly Grits. 

Directly across from the counter was Lou’s kitchen. Occasionally, small clouds of smoke drifted out of the open window between the stove and the ledge where prepared dishes were set to be picked up by the waitress. I had a good look at her as she stepped out of the kitchen with a full coffee pot and began refilling mugs set in front of her only customers. A short, heavy-set woman, she might have been forty-five.  Her washed-out complexion was exaggerated under the dull lighting, as it deepened the blueish circles under her heavily made-up eyes making her appear unhealthy.

I suddenly became conscious of a rich, meaty aroma, mingling with the heavy air around me. My mouth began to water. I could almost hear the fat from a steak sizzling and snapping on the grill. Keeping low, I moved around to the front of the diner, desperate to see if this was another sick devise of the Righteous Few to lure survivors to their cult, or to their death. The waitress was nowhere to be seen, but now I saw all three men had huge plates in front of them, thick slabs of steaks dripping juices onto the counter where they hung over the sides. One of the men shifted on the stool and I saw a pile of bright yellow scrambled eggs and a steaming scoop of cream-colored grits on the plate. It was too much for me. I had to eat and I’d convert to any religion, follow any phony patriotic mumbo jumbo, if it meant I could eat and survive.

I stood up, adjusting my torn jacket, smacked futilely at the dust on my pants and reached for the door. With my catastrophic needs fueling my actions, I jerked the door out of its frame, watching a thick stream of corroded metal disintegrate even as it fell. The glass shattered into a million yellow shards. I froze in shock, until I felt the heat from inside the diner hit me full in the face.  My eyes felt seared, automatically squeezing shut, while tears streamed uncontrollably from them. When I reached up to wipe at them, my hand came away with parchment like layers of skin, blackened like marshmallows over a campfire. A primordial scream filled my head, so intense, I fell to my knees, covering what was left of my charred ears. The scream went on and on until I felt myself being lifted under both my arms. Smoke swirled around me as if I was a candle, just snuffed out. My eyes were still screwed shut and I knew I dared not open them and see what was happening. It would make it too real.

I felt myself being lowered onto one of the round stools at the counter. Dare I look? My face! No, I chose to remain blind to this reality.

“Evening, sir. Can I get you some coffee while Lou makes your dinner?”

My eyes opened like clam shells, ready to snap shut at the least bit of provocation. The waitress was looking patiently at me, a smile drawn in red lipstick on her shriveled mouth. Without answering her, I turned to the men on either side, seeing their featureless faces under the dim lights. My breath caught in my heaving chest as I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass partition that was now closed between the kitchen and the counter. My face appeared to be melting, sliding down the boney structure that formed my brow, cheeks, jaw. I felt oddly calm, watching a blank sheet of skin forming over what were once my blue eyes and prominent nose, my mouth sealed forever. There was no confusion at what I saw.  Life without my face, living on a dying planet, seemed acceptable. 

“Am I in heaven or hell?” I asked the waitress, her pencil at the ready to get my order.

“Well, now that is the question, isn’t it? Let’s just say, it’s of your own making, so whatever it is, you’ve yourself to look to for blame or credit. The cook won’t take back your order if it’s not to your liking, but he will try to make it more palatable with some good spices, and his secret ingredients, from time to time. Just no predicting how it will all mix together until you’ve tried it.”

I slid off the stool, somehow able to see without eyes, until I stood at the entrance. “I don’t need heaven or hell right now. If this is my world, let me get on with living in it.”

 No one stopped me, or even called after me, as I walked out of the dim glow into whatever waited for me in the life I clung to.