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This world looked so normal, so similar to Earth that it was hard to think I wasn’t abroad in a foreign country.
That’s it, I decided. I wasn’t on an alien world an unthinkable distance from home. I was in a foreign country. I needed to make money to buy a ticket and return home.
That’s all.
I needed to get money. I had nothing right now, except the few credits the kind worker at the spaceport had left me. She said I would be hungry when I arrived and they wouldn’t provide me with food, so I ought to grab something as soon as I could.
I clutched my fancy designer S’mauggai bag close and crossed the street to an alien diner. A noise rang above the door. It wasn’t a bell or even an electronic sound. It was a high-pitched whine that Dracula used to make in old movies.
“Take a seat,” a buxom Titan waitress said.
She collected two plates of food from the front counter and carried them over to a pair of customers waiting at a corner booth. I couldn’t help but notice some of the food was still moving.
I slid into a booth and got comfortable. I was inside. It felt a little safer in here than outside.
It was like a Denny’s, only everything seemed a little… off. The coffee was a thick sludge that barely moved when you tilted it sideways. The food screamed when the customers speared it with their forks.
Little things like that.
The waitress handed me a menu. I peered at each moving image. Everything was gelatinous and writhed on the page. I didn’t think I could eat anything there… until I reached a very familiar-looking meal. I couldn’t believe my luck.
“I’ll have the fried breakfast, please,” I said.
“Are you sure you want that?” the waitress said. “It’s a bit risky at this time in the morning.”
“Isn’t that bacon?” I said.
“Yes.”
“And that’s toast? And eggs?”
“It is.”
I dug out the remaining credits I had and dumped them on the table.
“Do I have enough?” I said.
The waitress glanced at the credits and nodded.
“You do,” she said.
“Then I’ll have it, thanks.”
“All right,” the waitress said, jotting down my order and collecting my menu. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She yelled the order at the chef, which made me wonder why she even bothered to scribble it down in the first place.
“Excuse me,” I said to the waitress as she tucked the notepad and pencil away. “I just arrived in town and I was wondering how I should go about finding a job here.”
“Well, that’s easy,” the waitress said.
“It is?” I said, feeling a little hopeful.
“Just wear these,” the waitress said, digging inside the front pocket of her apron and coming out with a pair of headphones.
She nodded to the other side of the booth and left.
That’s it? I thought. It looked like an advertisement for a local electronics store, not for jobs.
