I love  “Writing Excuses“. Every show has a writing prompt and I am going to try and do more of them. A recent one was: write a dialogue between a person ordering at a drive through window and a person taking the order is being held up at gunpoint. I changed it a bit. It is between the gunman and the orderee. Here is my scene:

“Hello, is there anybody there?” Sam Roberts yelled into the screen of the Burger Fresh drive-thru intercom. Burger Fresh was usually extremely fast at handling his orders. Not because they thrived on customer service. Far from it. It was because most people went to Burger King or Macdonald’s. Sam was usually the only person in the drive-thru and today was no exception. He waited about 5 minutes before realizing that no one had taken his order. Where the hell were they? He yelled again, “Hello.”

“Hello…” The intercom crackled to life. It was man’s voice. Sam was expecting some kid, but any port in a storm.

“It’s about time. What the hell took you so long? I know. I know. You probably had to put on a hairnet and gloves to answer the damn intercom. The government and their safety regulations. Anyway…”

“Hey ya. Listen buddy we are experiencing uh, technical difficulties. The deep fryer is busted. Come back tomorrow.”

“Alright. Then just give me a Freshie Burger and Coke. I can skip the fries today.”

“Yeah, no. We can’t make a burger with the fryer out.”

Sam didn’t know how they made their burgers, but he was sure that they didn’t deep fry them. Most likely some sort of microwave. Whoever was inside wasn’t making much sense. A new guy? Or maybe it was the guys from work playing a joke on him. Yeah it was a joke. It had to be. They knew he ate here all the time. They must have come early and were trying to get a rise out him. He would play the game.

“Really. Well then I will get a salad. Give me the Freshie Salad with a raw burger and stale bun on the side. HA! I know what’s going on in there. You can tell Stan to go to hell.” He laughed. Got ya.

“What did you say?”

“I know it’s you guys. Whose all in there? Has to be Stan. Everett. Jesse. Now put the punk kid on and let me order.”

The intercom went silent, an unknown man lean out the drive-thru window with a gun. Bullets clanged into Sam’s hood. The windshield spiderwebbed and he knew that the joke was on him. He stepped on the gas and the car revved but stayed still. Damn it I left it in park. He slammed the car in reverse and screeched his car along the raised boulevard. His escape was halted by a crash with a new car in the drive-thru. Sam fell out of his car door.

The woman stepped out of her car and stared down Sam, “Hey your gonna pay for that.”

“Get out of here. They’re shooting at me.” The woman looked at Sam like he was crazy but he could see the recognition come to life on her face as she caught a glimpse of his windshield.

“Stay calm sir and stay down.”

Fuck this. Sam got up and zig zagged across the parking lot. He looked back at the Burger Fresh and a gun wielding man was getting ready to aim. The last things Sam saw were kaleidoscopic colours burst like paint over a black canvas and the world went silent.

—

            Sam could hear a woman calling out to him. “Hey are you alright?”

Sam had never felt worse. His face hurt like he went ten rounds with Mike Tyson.

“You ran into the burger fresh sign pretty hard.” The concerned voice belonged to the owner of the car he had hit.

“It’s alright. The Burger Fresh was being held up. Your little stunt gave me enough time to get the gun out of my car. I took down the lone perp.”

Sam tried to focus but the colors came back and he fell in and out dreams. “All I wanted was a burger.”

“I know sir. I just wanted a salad.”

“Would you marry me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Today is just not my day.”