Work Text:
“Thank you for visiting McDonald’s. Please come again,” the voice drones.
Flat. Lifeless. Hers.
About as full of spark as a soggy napkin.
Every day, Mystic Flour curses the misfortune of having been born. She stands behind the register, eyes glazed, sliding a receipt into the hand of a man without a face. Not that the man literally lacks one. Probably. Mystic Flour just can’t bring herself to care enough to look. Like most things these days, perception is merely optional.
How she ended up here, you may wonder?
Simple. After a long, punishing string of bad decisions—including, but not limited to, a mountain of debt, tax forms written in some alien language, and one very suspicious loan—Mystic Flour ended up here.
At a fast food restaurant.
In polyester pants.
Wearing a shirt with a capital M stitched above her heart like a brand seared into flesh. A badge of corporate defeat. A daily reminder that she has well and truly hit rock bottom.
Behind her, coworkers skitter about like noisy cockroaches, squabbling over fry baskets and dropped buns. The fryers snap and pop. Timers shriek. The air tastes of oil and old sweat; chicken, papery and pale, waits under heat lamps..
Mystic Flour inhales deeply, the way one might draw in the fumes of a collapsing civilization.
A tray crashes to the ground.
She closes her eyes and counts backward from ten. Slowly.
Another voice shouts.
She drifts.
In her mind, paradise unfurls—rolling grass swept like brushstrokes, rivers tumbling over stone in a path carved by wind. Flowers bloom under tender sunlight. Beneath a canopy of green, she reaches for the sky with hands not yet shackled and—
“Um, excuse me?”
—finds herself right back at the register.
Mystic Flour blinks, stares at the little worm slithering at the side of her register screen, and mourns the vanishing sun. With a discreet sigh, she straightens up and recites her programmed lines:
“Welcome to McDonald’s. What would you like to order?”
She's met with the sight of voluminous curls of hot pink, spilling over her shoulders and spiraling at the ends. A quick scan lets her know this is not where the pink ends, infact, it's an onslaught consisting solely of that same shade of pink. Eyes, lips, even her eyebrows. She's unsure whether to be impressed by or bemoan such a peculiar dedication.
The customer fidgets, fingers tapping together, rocking on her pink heels.
“Hmmm… Number 6 and 9 look like a solid deal. Ah, but this one seems pretty good too.”
It doesn’t stop there.
The woman ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ over menu items with the breathless wonder of someone touring the Louvre, except the art here is frozen burgers and fries. Each noise tightens a knot in Mystic Flour’s skull until she entertains the thought of smashing her forehead against the counter and bleeding out. Not that she wasn’t already considering it.
“Oh… I just can’t decide. Can you give me a minute?”
Mystic Flour—like the most welcoming staff member—says absolutely nothing. Just stares. Flat. Unblinking.
Watching as the other drives themselves up a wall in their conquest of deciphering the mysteries held in the food menu.
The line behind the woman mysteriously evaporates. It’s only then Mystic Flour notices the shift in the sky through the window: soft blues swallowed by rich midnight hues, a telltale of the hours. How long has she been frozen like this, staring down a woman who treats the McDonald’s menu like a philosophical text?
And why hasn’t the lady spoken yet?
She continues hovering her painted nails over laminated plastic, contemplating fried chicken with the gravitas of a judge in ancient Rome, which, in Mystic Flour's humble opinion, is more work than a menu from a rundown restaurant is worth. A suit hangs off her frame.
A suit.
In a McDonald’s.
Who the fuck wears a suit to McDonald’s?
With every passing second, the fantasy of collapsing face-first on the register becomes more inviting. A neat little implosion, blood soaking the counter, good-for-nothing coworkers shrieking, headlines reading Local Woman Finally Snaps at McDonald’s.
At least then she’d be finally free.
And it would all be this woman’s fault.
Mystic Flour teeters at the brink. One more sigh, one more glance at that smugly indecisive finger, and she might actually detonate.
Food is food. Salt, grease, disappointment. Why spend eternity picking between different shades of letdown?
“Oh, I know! I’ve got an order!” the customer exclaims, voice triumphant after minutes that tested the very limits of human patience. The tension she hadn't even known was brewing snaps, a puppet whose strings have finally broken. Mystic Flour nearly weeps in gratitude to gods she doesn’t believe in.
“What would you like to order?” she asks again, voice flawless in its emptiness.
The woman grins, catlike eyes flicking up to study her form, lips curling into something mischievous.
“I’d like to have…” She pauses, savoring the beat. “…your number.”
She winks.
...
...
Mystic Flour stares.
“I’m afraid that’s not on the menu.”
“Ugh—! Rejected!” the woman gasps, clutching her chest like she's been shot.
Mystic Flour stares harder. If the ceiling would collapse and bury her right now, it might almost be a mercy.