My Cheeseburger bit me

Len grabbed a burger at the drive thru. He always bought one burger to eat at home with the meal and a second burger to get him through the car ride back. He was in his mid 30’s and he always assumed that doing things like this would come back to bite him in the ass, but ultimately it turned out it bit him on the lip.

Len reached into the fast-food bag. He took out a small single patty burger, folded back the paper, and attempted to sink his teeth into it. He missed. He bit into burgers a million times, he didn’t need to see it to eat it. Of all the things in this world he had most certainly put in his ten thousand hours enough to be considered an expert in this. He tried to take another bite, but he missed again.

When the red light caught him he stopped to look at what he was doing, it was dark, he was tired, perhaps his depth perception was off. He thoughtfully shoved the burger in his face like any good American should. The bread moved out of his mouth range and avoided his teeth like a nimble child dodging someone in a game of tag. After it moved to the side it clamped down on Len’s face. It didn’t hurt, but that was clearly not Len’s reason for concern.

He flung the burger onto the window. He breathed heavily. The sudden honk of a blaring horn jolted him awake . He must had been tired, that had to be it, what else could it be. He cautiously picked up the mangled cheeseburger and threw it in the bag.

All Len could think of on the way home was the snapping meat that fought back. It wasn’t as if he had waking delusions on a regular basis so this was something he had to address. He went to his kitchen, dumped out the bag onto the kitchen counter, and grabbed a steak knife from a drawer. His cat Fisher hopped onto the counter curious of what his silly human roommate was up to now.

With the knife leading the way he prodded at the half wrapped burger as if he were doing an autopsy. He ripped at the paper and took the top bun off with the knife. He smiled and looked at Fisher. “What the fuck was I thinking”, he mumbled to himself. Fisher stared at him indifferently and said, “I know right”. Len looked back to the burger, then nearly broke his neck snapping back to his lean black cat.

“What…?”, Len questioned, not expecting to hear it again. “You stabbed your food with a steak knife, that’s ridiculous”, Fisher said. “Duddddeeee!!!”, Len howled. “What!?”, Fisher said back with agitation. “You can talk?”, Len questioned. “I could always talk, are you hearing me?”, Fisher said back with some surprise himself. “Yeah, I can hear you”. “That’s a relief, I thought I was losing it bro”, said the cat.

“I must be crazy. I must be”, Len insisted. “Or maybe you’re asleep, you should stab yourself to wake yourself up”, said Fisher. Len pushed the knife to the palm of his hand. “Oh shit, you were gonna do it”, Fisher said with a chuckle. “Then why’d you suggest it, if you didn’t think I’d do it”. “I’m a cat dude, I like doing fucked up shit for no reason”.

Len put the knife down and paced back and forth in his kitchen. “Calm down bro you’re making me nervous”, said Fisher. “I’m making you nervous?”. “Yeah, you’re making me nervous, it’s not all about you, you fuckin narcissist”. “What do I do, what do I do…”. “Nothing, what changed?”, asked Fisher. “A cheese burger bit me, and oh yeah you can talk now”. “Once again, I could always talk, you’re the one who didn’t understand it, not me”. “So why do I have to tell you things like 100 times for you to get it”. “Fuck you man, you don’t own me”. “Well I sorta do”.

Fisher tilted his head in thought and indignation, “That’s what this is to you, you think you own me. I didn’t know you were actually an asshole all this time. I just thought you were kinda like a friendly helpful dude… a bit of an incel, but you know, I’m not trying to judge you. All this time you thought I was your property. Damn, humans have a fucked up way of thinking man. I really need to rethink my life”, said Fisher hopping off the table. “I should probably move out then”, said Fisher. “Can you…?”. “Watch me mutherfucker!!!”.

“So you own that creature?”, came a voice from the kitchen counter. Len looked over to the cheeseburger. The bun had reattached itself and was moving up and down like a mouth. “Whattttt…”. “Don’t be so dramatic, you already went through this with the cat”, said the burger. “This is arguably even fuckin’ weirder than the cat thing… where the fuck am I pee wee’s playhouse”.

“Human… stay focused, you don’t have much time left”, said the cheeseburger. “Time for what?”, Len asked curiously. “Time before the invasion”. “Of cheeseburgers, I think we got this one”, Len said with a superior chuckle. “Not of cheeseburgers you moron of the Moufohunegan race”. “What can I do about it?”, Len asked eagerly. “Well now that I think about it very little, but you could plead your case to the Moufohunegan counsel to not be destroyed”.

“You came to me, I’m somehow the lynch pin?”. The cheeseburger laughed for a full 10 seconds. His bun quivered and rose like a muppet. “Absolutely not”, the cheeseburger spoke. “You don’t have to be rude about it”, said Len, becoming a little self-conscious at the idea of being mocked by food. “I apologize, I figured it best to at least speak with you before we harvest your race, to see if any of you were worth saving”.

“Why are you a talking burger?”. “Technically I was a talking cow, which you people killed and made into a burger. Without getting too deep into the science of it all because I think it’d be lost on you…”. The cheeseburger wasn’t wrong, Len was relatively stupid and he knew it, but that didn’t stop it from hurting his feelings. “We are made up of several entities. Just in this burger there dwells thousands of us”. “So you don’t die when you get cut up”. “Ok… I’ll talk slower. We are a collective and very small. Separating us would be the same as if you put a third of the population on life rafts and sent them to live on Antarctica”.

“What do they call you… or the nation of you?”, asked Len. “Don’t know yet, we haven’t gotten used to this form yet”. “And why can I talk to you and the cat all of a sudden?”. “When we bit you a few of our citizens must have gotten into your bloodstream and fixed your brain so that you can decipher languages. We are a population of thousands and we all pitch in. In a few years our people may grow and take you over when our birth rate booms”. “Can I opt out of this?”. The cheeseburger laughed, “Absolutely not. Come Len prepare yourself we must meet with the counsel to decide humanity's fate”.

Len grabbed his coat. He saw Fisher by the door looking at him dismissively. “Are you gonna let me out ‘masterrrr’ “, the cat said sarcastically. “You don’t have to leave man”, Len said in a plea. “Oh, I think I do if you own me”, Fisher said. “Look man, we can work it out”, Len insisted. “I don’t see that happening, now are you gonna let me out or am I gonna have to destroy your shit until you do”. “But you already do”. “Well, more than I normally do, and this time you’d know it was in anger not because I was being funny”.

Len begrudgingly unlocked his door and pushed it open with teary eyes. Fisher only half turned as he ventured outside to regard who he thought was his incel friend one last time before disappearing down the street.

Len drove with the cheeseburger riding shotgun on the dashboard like a novelty ornament. The cheeseburger directed him to a junkyard just outside of the city limits. As scared as Len was becoming, he had to finish what he started. He had to see just how far it went.

He held the cheeseburger out like a lantern as he directed him through the dark and ominous place of forgotten treasures. “Aren’t we gonna get in trouble wandering out here?”, Len asked. “Don’t you worry I know a guy, we’re cool”. As if to test that theory a well weathered bulldog plodded towards them. It was nearly Len’s height even on 4 legs. He took an instinctive cautionary step back.

The menacing hound looked to Len, then to the cheeseburger he held in his hand. “Come, brother, we are waiting”, said the huge hound, who turned around and led the 2 back to a palace of cars stacked into a pyramid. The place was dim, and Len heard the murmuring of an assembled crowd, but only saw random bits of junk haphazardly laid out and dimly lit.

The dog sat next to a television set, and a raccoon who was dressed like a wizard. At that moment Len was more curious who tailored the raccoon’s outfit than the talking dog. There may had been people tucked away in the dark shadows but Len couldn’t make everything out very clearly.

The television turned on and an image of the actor Jack Black appeared on screen. “Cow, why have you brought this man amongst us”, said digital Jack Black. The burger’s mouth frantically waggled, “For if we are to condemn man we should have at least 1 man to speak on this doomed planet's behalf.

The assembled tribunal of junk mumbled and harrumphed. “We second the motion", said an assembled pile of assorted cheeseburgers and meat products all loosely stacked near each other. “I do not believe that cow should get separate votes just because they have been divided into different pieces", said a broken iPhone 2 with a cracked screen. “I concur, until the nation of Cow declares each piece of itself sovereign all pieces of cow will be considered one nation”, said the television.

“Man… step forward and prove your mettle”, said digital television Jack Black. Len chuckled, even as a tv alien Jack Black made him laugh. “Ah, I don’t know what to say”, said Len. “You are the smartest most dominant beings on the planet, explain why we should not annihilate you all and claim this place for our own", said the raccoon wizard, while rubbing his tiny little bandit hands together.

Len thought for a long while, never needing to prove why his or humanity's existence was special. “I don’t know, we have invented things, like cars and the Internet”, Len said. “And slavery”, said a homeless black man stepping from the shadows. “That was a long time ago man”. “No it isn’t, do you not ‘own’ your animals, is that not slavery”, said the junkyard dog. “But dude it’s a dog”. “Oohh oh, so it is ok, to subjugate animals that are stupider than you for your own amusement, why should we not do that to you?”, said cracked iPhone 2.

“I mean I let my cat go once I realized he could talk”, said Len in humanities defense. “This is true, I second that”, said cheeseburger. “So because you couldn’t understand your cat it was ok to enslave it. You, until very recently, couldn’t understand us because you were too stupid to hear us. Let the record show this man believes that if we cannot communicate with lower beings it is fair to enslave them”, said the television.

The counsel seemed as if it had all but condemned humanity on the strength of that argument alone. Len had to think fast, “Ahhhh, what about souls and kindness and that sort of thing”. “We should consult our elder who has been amongst you the longest", said the tv.

Emerging from the darkness was Taylor Swift wearing a black hood and cloak, Len was absolutely sure of it. “Are you Taylor Swift?”, he asked. “Yes”, she said matter of factly. “Thee Taylor Swift?”, Len asked again to clarify. “Yes… I have been amongst your people for 35 years studying the hearts of men”, she said. “Do you have bad blood?”, said Len. Taylor Swift looked Len in the eye as if she wasn’t about to go through his list of bad song related puns.

“Silence”, said Taylor, “but yes… I do in fact have bad blood. I have been studying human relationships and found them lacking. They do not have unity amongst even the male and female of their kind. They can barely manage to find consensus between two of their kind let alone a nation, or a global community. None of my relationships last”, said Taylor Swift. “But at least you get hit songs out of it”, said Len. Taylor said nothing more.

The homeless man spoke, “For every instance of compassion or joy, I have seen 2 atrocities. A human's love is reserved for their spawn, and those in their immediate inner circle and no one else. For I have lived on their streets for 20 years and seen the worst of them”. “I receive better treatment than the nation of homeless Clyde and even their love of me comes from the notion of ownership not true compassion”, said the junkyard dog. “For it is decided, we will commence with the deconstruction of humanity”, said digital Jack Black.

Len reached through his mind for any reason not to be destroyed, and though it was a complete hail Mary he only had one thought. “You said humanity is the smartest being on the planet, therefore the dominant species, but what about A.I, huh”, said Len as if that was enough to cinch it. As far out of left field as that statement seemed to be, the nation of iPhone 2 spoke up, “The human is right, A.I. is smarter than humans could ever be”.

There were murmurs throughout the assembled counsel of odd discarded junk. They all seemed to speak amongst themselves.

The cheeseburger leaned in and whispered to Len. “This is a good sign, they don’t usually deliberate this long on anything”.

Digital Jack Black turned back to Len. “Technically speaking A.I. is the smartest consciousness on the planet, but it is in its infancy. It would not be right to condemn the child of its imperfect parents. For we shall monitor this new consciousness until we have decided if we deem it worthy of this planet's ownership”. The junk all began to either disperse or fade out of sight.

“What happened?”, said Len to the cheeseburger in his hand. “You did it?”. “I did?”. “Well no… but you bought humanity a few more years”. “So I can just go home?”. “Yeah sure man whatever”, said Cheeseburger. “Ahhhh, what do I do with you, do you need a lift somewhere or something”. “Ahhh, no, you can just put me down I”ll hang out here”, said the nation of cheeseburger formerly of cow. “Ok man, I’m just gonna go home”, said Len as if he didn’t believe it was that simple. “Ok, you be good”, said Cheeseburger. Len put down the burger and backed away.

Len drove home and it didn’t feel quite real. Waiting in front of his house was the black cat Fisher. “Hey man”, said the black cat. “Hey”, said Len. “I see they didn’t destroy you, that’s cool man”, said the cat. “Yeah, I thought so too”.

The two of them shared in an awkward silence before both of them spoke at the same time. “No, you go”, they both said in unison before laughing. “I shouldn’t have said I own you man. Look if you wanna crash, you can crash”, Len said. “Thanks man, I think I will. I’ve been out here a few hours and I’ve already pissed off sooooo many people. I could use a place to lay low for a while”.

Len opened the door. As he was about to step through the threshold Fisher darted between his legs and nearly tripped him. The cat chuckled mischievously, “Learn how to walk nerd”. Len smiled to himself and closed his door.