At work the next day she stood in the kitchen of a chain restaurant in a baby-blue uniform, flipping burgers in the dazzling fluorescent glow of the lights. She could smell the char on the meat and she could hear the sizzling of the juices and she could feel the oily grease in the air on the skin of her face. She was sweating. The job was programmatic, required zero attention once the routine had been committed to memory, just a mechanical series of movements executed in a certain order, and so instead of thinking about what she was doing she was thinking about telephones, daydreaming about the titanic network of wires spanning the planet, wires swooping over rooftops, wires soaring along highways, wires hanging above mossy swamps, wires gliding across rainy forests, wires crossing through tunnels dug through snowy mountains, wires lying underwater on rocky seabeds, transmitting electric signals between telephones around the world. Daydreaming was peaceful. There was a relief in being able to momentarily escape from self-awareness. The rare moments when she did have to be actually conscious of the job were miserable. As usual, none of her coworkers had spoken to her all morning.
“Coke and some fries,” said a customer at the counter.
Beatriz slid the spatula under a burger.
“No pickles,” said a customer at the counter.
“Extra ketchup,” said a customer at the counter.
“Apple pie and a burger,” said a customer at the counter.
Beatriz flipped.