The Burger

The Burger

Each step closer was one step closer to enlightenment.  I could almost taste my burger; all of its flavors were on the tip of my tongue.  The bag sat on the counter, perfect and pleading me to pick it up and glance into it at the joy it would provide.  I peeked into the glowing white bag, its sides crumpled, no longer perfect.  A gleam of red light peeked through the barrage of hamburger colors and momentarily blinded me.  A tomato.  

“Um, excuse me, yeah sorry, I asked for no tomatoes,” I politely told the pimply teen behind the counter as I pointed to the red intruder.

“Oh, okay, I’m sorry but I guess you could, like, take off the tomato?” He said to me, rushing back to the grill.“Okay sorry about the tomato.  Thanks for choosing In-n-Out!”  he exclaimed.  He began to return to the kitchen.

No.  He didn’t understand.  Now that the tomato had touched my perfect, heavenly burger, it just wouldn’t taste right.  Even if I took the tomato off, every bite would taste like the soggy, red villain.  My hamburger had been tainted by the forces of evil and nothing could cure it.  

The pimply teen came back with a second bag for my friend, Shannon.

“Wait!” I yelled, my voice echoing throughout the building.  A period of awkward silence ensued before I finally said, “Look, I get that you have a job and it’s very important and all, but, like, I really, really, really hate tomatoes, and my experience today, just, like, won’t be as good, if the tomato decides to be a part of it.”

“Oh my gosh, Sheila, it’s just a tomato, you can take it off,” Shannon murmured, obviously embarrassed by the whole ordeal.

The pimply teen looked back and forth from me to Shannon and back to me.  He started to smile, and it seemed as though Pimply Teen had decided that this was some weird prank.  He chuckled.

“I’m not laughing.  I want a new burger, and this time please keep the tomato off.”  I was done.  I just wanted to get my burger and go home.

Realizing just how serious I was, Pimply Teen wiped the smirk straight off his face.  “Okay,” he said slowly, but deliberately.  “My friend, Dan, can ring you up for a new burger over there,” he pointed at the cashier, another, slightly-less pimply teen.

Shannon, who looked like she’d been holding her breath while this conversation was taking place, looked at me.  Her eyes said, “Sheila, let’s just leave and never speak of this again while we still have some dignity.”  But Shannon looked into my eyes and saw how disturbed I was.  She knew what I had done for her when  she had been bullied by these terribly mean kids in middle school, and she knew what she had to do now for me, as we were both mature high schoolers.  She took a breath and clearly remarked, “My friend said that she didn’t want tomato when she ordered, so it’s your job, your one and ONLY job, by the way, to make what the customer wants, exactly how she wants it.”

The pimply teen stared at her.  His face looked shocked, and why wouldn’t it?  Shannon is really small.  She’s like a pared down toothpick.  Shannon has always had a tissue box in hand when I cry, but she has never fought for me before.

“Do you just want to talk to my manager?  I can’t really do anything, but maybe he can help.”  Finally, the pimply teen’s eyes had softened.  His face had even flushed a little.  And although he wasn’t blindly exercising his power over me, I still felt inferior to him.  He pitied me because I cared so much about a tomato that I had turned into a tantrumming toddler.

He pities me.

You know your life is sad when a teenager pities you.  Being 15, I realize that my peers judge me all the time.  Judging others is a teen’s way of seeing them as an equal.  Pity is different than judgement.  Pity feels inferior.

Shannon looked at me, pride still shining through her teeth.  

“Thanks, Shannon.” My teeth smiled at her, but my eyes didn’t.  I couldn’t smile when I felt this overwhelmed with shame.  Why was I to pity?  “Um so,” I looked at Pimply Teen’s name badge.  Timothy.  “Yeah, um, so Timothy.  I’m sorry.  It’s okay, I’ll just take the tomato off.  Thanks.”  My eyes didn’t dare move to his.  I made direct eye contact with the counter.

Shannon put her hand on my shoulder and tried to pat it, but it felt more like she was slapping sunburn.  I picked up my crumpled In-n-Out bag, and it was damp where I held it.  I don’t know what I’d been getting worked up about.

After all, it was only a tomato.

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Analysis:  The Burger

In my flash fiction, the themes from the novel that I illustrate are camaraderie and maintaining human dignity.  Shannon tells off the pimply teen, even though she is embarrassed by Sheila.  She speaks up for Sheila because she helped her out and became her friend when kids bullied her in middle school.  In the novel, similar themes are expressed.  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich says, “Everyone forgot what they’d been talking or thinking about.  There was only one thing they had their minds on now-- get ahead of those other guys and beat ‘em to it!” (101)  The camaraderie in the novel is driven by wanting more food, and not because the men owe anything to each other.  The author illustrates that camaraderie can be caused because of what someone wants, or feels like he must do.  Similarly, the Estonians feel like they must be friends with each other because they are both from the same place and they hold a little part of each’s past.  The author says, “They were both tow-haired, both lanky, both skinny, they both has long noses and big eyes. They clung together as though neither would have air enough to breathe without the other. [...] They shared of their food and slept up top on the same bunk [....] they never stopped talking to each other in their slow, quiet way” (260).  Being from the same place brings the Estonians together and makes them closer.  The author even illustrates their similarities because he wants to show us how the Estonians are almost just one unit.  This is further shown through the fact that they sleep in the same bed and share all of their food.  Because Sheila helped Shannon out when they were younger, Shannon feels close to her and thinks that she needs to speak up for Sheila, however she does not think that what Sheila is doing is necessarily right.

Maintaining dignity is a part of both stories.  Sheila must not fight any further once she realizes that the worker pities she.  She feels that she has become a lesser person, although it was the worker who messed up her order. In One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, Fetyukov is unable to keep his dignity as he tries to survive.  Solzhenitsyn writes, “That scavenger Fetyukov had scrounged together quite a pile of cigarette butts from somewhere (he would even pick them up out of a spittoon without batting an eye)...  Fetyukov had three children “outside,” but they’d all disowned him when he was arrested, and his wife had married again”(40).  Fetyukov no longer has any dignity at the work camps, however, he feels that since he had no dignity when he started in the camps, “they’d all disowned him when he was arrested,” he maintains his dignity at an extremely low level.  To Fetyukov, survival is more important than what others think of him.  Being a teenager, Sheila does not want to be looked down upon, especially by another adolescent, so she walks away before she would completely be lesser in the eyes of Pimply Teen.