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After the Lunch Shift, I Went Out With Angie and Jake to a New Burrito Place.
=============================================================================

There's something about being a waiter, and playing a role for hours
that makes me desperate for a real connection after. I'm done acting,
wearing a smile.

The three of us sat at a picnic table outside in this shady spot in the
front yard of the place. I couldn't decide if I liked this place or not.
It wasn't clear if it were a humble restaurant started by some
cash-strapped chef with a dream, or if it was a new concept and the
bare-bones aesthetic was just them testing how cheaply they could
operate and still be successful.

I don't remember how we got on the subject, but I started telling them
about an idea I had a long time ago.

I imagined that there was a civilization that realized it was doomed.
Their scientists or their psychics or their temple priests discovered
that an earthquake was coming that was going to wash them all away. Or
maybe it was a comet that was gonna crash into them. The mechanism isn't
really important. The point was that the whole culture is facing
oblivion in a few weeks, or months, or whatever.

But instead of people turning against each other, they spend the last
time they have just being really nice to each other, and being honest
about all the shit they regretted, and everyone goes around forgiving
each other, and saying goodbyes to each other, and thanking the people
in their lives.

In my daydream, in the time before they all die, people play music in
the streets and cook amazing food and give it away. Some people dressed
up in their fanciest clothes for no reason. Jewelers walk around giving
away their most beautiful things just to make people.

Then on the very last day, they all go outside to the beach or to the
top of a mountain or whatever and wait for the tidal wave or the comet
or the swarm of flesh-eating locusts or to come and destroy them.

Now I remember how I got on this topic. Jake was talking about how he
watched a documentary about the people that lived in that Greek city
that were all killed when a volcano erupted. I was obsessed with that as
a kid. I wanted to list all the amazing subtle things that
archaeologists had discovered when Jake brought it up, but I didn't
wanna trample his topic.

So that's how I ended up describing this weird daydream I've had for
years about people realizing they're doomed, but just accepting it, and
then rather than cursing it, or struggling to the very last second to
escape, they just comfort each other.

Then I realized I had been excitedly talking for a few minutes. Too
much. Normally I try not to say much. I started feeling embarrassed. I
love my thoughts but I know a lot of people think I'm really weird. And
I hate when people then kinda make fun of my silly ideas.

A lot of times when I really open up about these daydreams I have,
after, I feel like nobody wants me to share that stuff. I imagine while
I was talking about something, and getting excited to tell them about
it, maybe they were all looking at each other, wondering when I would
shut up.

So mostly, I don't talk. I try to show interest in others. Listen to
them. And it shows me over and over so few people say anything remotely
like what I think about.

I abruptly stopped talking when I realized I was getting excited.

Nobody talked. And here comes the nervousness. I could feel my heart
starting to pound in my chest. I opened my empty drink and grabbed some
ice cubes.

I said, "Sorry, I didn't want to dominate the conversation by making
y'all listen to my weird daydreams."

Again, dead air. I wanted to snap my fingers and disappear and wipe
their memories about this whole afternoon. I shouldn't have gone out
with them. Now I've switched from being the quiet but sometimes funny
guy at work to being a delusional weirdo.

Going home and staying inside was the safer choice. I felt vulnerable
now. I felt myself sweating. From the heat and from feeling exposed.

Then Angie said, "Wait, no, we were into it. So, what happened? What
happened when they all went to the beach?"

I looked at her. I had been studying the hell out of the empty red
plastic basket lined with wax paper that my food came in. I concentrated
on the different bits of food still left that had fallen out of my
burrito. A few bits of diced red onions. Some incandescent orange smears
of hot sauce. Pale brown liquid from the soupy pinto beans.

I saw tiny fractals where the hot sauce touched the bean liquid. I don't
know why, but I find myself staring at shit intently when I get nervous.
Maybe it helps me deal with feeling overwhelmed.

I looked up. Angie wasn't staring at me. She had lit a cigarette and she
was watching cars drive by.

Jake meanwhile was turning the pages in the newspaper.

I said, "Well I made all this shit up, so whatever you want can happen.
I guess I imagined they were all wiped out. But they died together."

I felt a breeze. It was hot but when it's breezy and we're in the shade,
it's not that bad.

And then I felt the excitement coming back. I pointed with my finger for
no reason. "OK, I got it. The gods, or time travelers from the future,
or something else, some deus ex machina device comes in and spares them.
But that's only because the aliens or whatever see how they'd spent
their last days."

I stopped talking again. Tried my best to figure out what the hell was
going on. Did Angie and Jake just want me to shut up but didn't want to
say it? Was it possible that they were enjoying this? I loved the rush I
got from sharing these ideas in my head, but I don't want to annoy the
people around me.

God, the not knowing if I'm bothering them is the worst. I watched the
cars drive by. It really was a nice day. But I decided to finish the
thought.

Angie watched the cars drive by. "That's cool. I like that story. I like
it better when they're all OK."

She paused. "Then a year later, they could do it again. Like a holiday."

Jake spoke up. "Until comet extinction day becomes really commercial."