Lasagna Day

Thursday was lasagna day. Richard Littleman brought a cold lunch from home most days of the week, a salami sandwich or perhaps one with egg salad, but he always bought a hot lunch from the cafeteria on Thursday. Much like the fat orange cat in the comic strip, he loved lasagna. And you could never count on any being left on Friday. The staff only made enough for those that would eat it on Thursday. Leftovers no longer existed. The word had fallen out of the language.

The queue was never very long. The service staff had long ago determined which employees would come for their meals and when. Just as Richard stepped up to the rail, a tray appeared out of a small slot. It seemed a little slower today than usual, Richard thought. On the tray was a little receipt with Richards employee number (81627) on it. As always, the cost of the meal would be deducted from his pay. And though he hadn’t even begun the process of selecting his meal (salad, entree, sides, dessert, and drink), the computer new just how much to charge.

Richard turned and slid his tray down to the first station. The salad station. He didn’t need to stop here, he never got a salad and the service drone knew that, but Frank Johnson was at the entree station still. The line seemed to be moving slower than normal today, too. In fact, now that Richard thought about it, everything was moving slower today. Perhaps he should have taken a chill pill this morning after all, but he hadn’t thought he’d needed it. He’d gone several days without one before and not had any issues. Well, it’s too late now, he thought. He’d just have to be patient, something the pill usually did for him.

While he waited for Johnson to move his large rear end out of the way, he began to look around the cafeteria. It was something he normally didn’t do, but he didn’t like staring at service drone. It seemed rude. Richard was the type of guy who kept to himself and tried to keep his algorithm simple. It didn’t do to stand out. It only caused trouble. And they’d know before you even began to get any attention, so it didn’t even pay to think about standing out. The people in the cafeteria wore plain, bland colored suits and dresses. All grays and navy blues and soft browns. There were no bright colors, not even on ties or pocket handkerchiefs. No bright lipstick. No gold jewelry.

The walls of the cafeteria were a color that Richard did not know the name of, but it made hospital green look lively and cheerful. There were large holoscreens here and there showing only cartoons of the fat orange cat, the little bald man with the big nose, and the happy family whose children never age (and also never claimed any wrong doing). All comedy had been predicted and thus ruined. To laugh out loud at anything would be deemed more than odd and might wind you up in therapy, which is somewhere nobody wanted to be. So only the mildly humorous misadventures of the fat orange cat and the others were safe to watch. As for drama, sports, and action, they lost everything when they were all predicted. They were non-existent.

The news had been replaced with The Views, daily predictions from The Oracle about any and everything, and these showed on some holoscreens later in the day. For most predictions that actually had an effect on Richard’s own meager life, he’d have to dig deep into the back pages of the Viewspaper to find any such thing.

The line finally moved and Richard stepped over to the entree station. The service drone had a white ceramic plate with a small piece of lasagna on it ready to go and placed it on RIchard’s tray . Normally he was as delighted as he could be (without being deemed a madman) to see that sad little square, but today, for some reason, he was very disappointed indeed. Today, he wanted a slab of lasagna, not just a small single square. He should have taken his pill this morning.

Stymied again by Johnson’s large posterior blocking the side dish station, Richard looked around more at the cafeteria and the people in it. I bet they all took their pills this morning, he thought, somewhat sourly.

A robotic hand with a tissue came up from a table just in time to catch a sneeze from Mindy in accounting. A fuller hand with a glove on it swooped up and covered Don Baird’s mouth as he belched. A young man that Richard didn’t know began to slip, but was caught by a pair of robotic arms before he could really even get started. Accidents weren’t an issue since The Oracle came along. Not here at Crowder Corp nor any where else.

Richard wondered, perhaps for the very first time, about The Oracle. He’d always assumed it was some sort of machine, but there were those that thought it was a person, a being of some sort, either endowed with intelligence beyond most human comprehension or some sort of magical foresight. That always made Richard laugh, not too loudly or too enthusiastically of course.

The line moved and Richard slowly inched towards the side dish station. For some strange reason, he felt like he wanted garlic bread to go with his lasagna. But that was ridiculous. He never got garlic bread. He never wanted it. He was always quite content with his (single, sad, little) piece of lasagna and a small dish of green gelatin. And besides, if he’d wanted it today, the staff would have known and a little dish with garlic bread would have been placed on his tray as soon as Richard approached the side dish station. Since one wasn’t, he obviously didn’t want any garlic bread. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it? All buttery and crispy with garlic and herbs and maybe a little cheese of some Italian sort melted on top. He doubted the garlic bread in the cafeteria could measure up to what he was thinking about.

Oh, why hadn’t he taken a pill this morning?

He had to get away from the side dish station. The desire for garlic bread was becoming too great. He needed to just get his small dish of green gelatin and get to his seat before anyone noticed that he wanted something that had not been predicted, that he felt something that had not been predicted, that he was on the verge of becoming something that had not been predicted. That just wouldn’t do. He’d be hauled off for sure. The big men in white jackets would come and take him away for reprogramming.

The service drone was staring at him. He could feel a big fat bead of sweat roll down his forehead. He had to look away in case the drone noticed something was wrong. He turned to move forward, but was still blocked by Johnson’s big fat ass. He couldn’t wait any longer. He WAS going to go mad. He just knew it, if he didn’t get away from the garlic bread, he could smell it, the maddening aroma wafting up from behind the side dish station, with one purpose, one purpose alone and that purpose was to drive Richard mad, he was going to cry, he was going scream, he was going to oh he should have taken his pill this morning but he didn’t and now

Johnson farted. And that was the end of it.

At first, Richard just chuckled, then the chuckle turned int a giggle, the giggle turned into a laugh, and the laugh turned into a full blown crack up!

Oh, sure, the little vacuum/fan had come out of the ceiling and sucked up the fart just as it happened, and the little hand came out of the floor and pumped twice on an air freshener spray dispenser, but it was too late for Richard. Not that he had to smell it, but it wasn’t the smell that tickled him into fits. It was the sound, the way the it started slow and low, but rose in pitch just at the end in a very inquisitive way that made him start laughing. And once he had started, there was apparently no stopping. And why should he? It felt good to laugh. He didn’t care if people thought he was crazy, for the moment he didn’t even care about being reprogrammed, all he cared about was, What was Johnson’s ass trying to ask?

With that thought, a whole new round of laugh spasms struck him, and with every question answering that question that he could think of, he got further and further from any chance of reeling himself in. May I ass you a question? Here came the tears. Do these pants make me look big? He fell over. Butts so funny? He began rolling. Did you take your chill pill this morning, Richard? He actually peed a little at that one!

And, right on cue, the big men in the white coats came. Richard didn’t struggle, he was too busy laughing to do so. As the drug him off for what he assumed would be reprogramming, he only hoped that he would still remember this moment afterwords, how good it felt to laugh, how alive he felt. He hoped, but he doubted it. Because if he remembered, he’d want to do it again, and that wouldn’t do at all.