The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

[MethodicalSlacker]

It was the start of first period English, and from her seat in the back of the first floor classroom Amaryllis was in perfect position to watch the twenty mile per hour wind gusts tear a paper bag caught in the side of a trash can to shreds. She wasn't sure how it got there, stuck in the side of the black metal grate casing that kept the barrel itself from flying off into the sky. Maybe someone tried to alley-oop it in and missed. Maybe they just stuck it in the side lazily as they walked by. Either way, it wasn't hanging on very well. Little brown strips of paper were torn from the ballooning bag body and fluttered out like autumn leaves falling upwards into the sky. She didn't know how long it would take for the whole thing to eventually come loose and soar away, but she would watch it until it did.

And that's pretty much how it all was going.

There were still twenty minutes until the start of class. Amaryllis wasn't usually this early to school, or anything else for that matter. But last night she hadn't slept. She was up too late, watching the results come in, embittered as the sun rose and further weathered by the frigid cold as she crept upon school-time. Ms. Ruby wasn't even in yet, even though the door was open and the chairs were down. For her sake, Amaryllis hoped she was staying home. They didn't know if it was around here yet, but the virus was worse on the elderly, and school was still on, without masks or anything.

It was only the sixth sign of the apocalypse so far that year. The Pope punched a woman, to start. An Iranian general was assassinated by a missile strike and World War III almost started. Australia, the entire fucking thing, was on fire. Locusts swarmed across the Horn of Africa, husking the landscape. Kobe Bryant died in a freak helicopter accident, which wasn't quite on par with the international catastrophes she'd just mentioned but it sure made everyone around her way more upset than any of those. And now there was a virus—not the first that Amaryllis had ever feared, since Swine Flu and Ebola scared everyone shitless a few years back—a virus that might just tip the whole thing over and strip the bag from its moorings and shred it midair.

For her part, Amaryllis was trying to play it cool. She had one earbud in, listening to some Siouxsie, her Chromebook in her lap. Her phone was buzzing with Twitter chirps and Snapchat streaks, but she was ignoring it all for now. The room was empty and the lights were off, and she was all alone.

But that's entertainment
What we crave for inside
No more second rate movies
From those people outside

Her stomach grumbled, and she remembered the breakfast she hadn't eaten. It made her slink down further in her seat, so she could touch the chair in front of her with the tips of her toes. A little further down she slid, now almost horizontal on the chair, and she could rock the chair back and forth, forward and back, until—

CRASHBANGCLATTERSMASH

it fell backwards onto the ground.

Amaryllis sat up straight again in her own chair. Someone else would get that. She turned to look back outside. The paper bag was still in the side of the trash can. It looked a little thinner. With a worried look, she turned her face towards the door of the classroom and read the clock above the threshold.

7:42 AM.

Fuck.

[Jilly]

Amos wandered through the classroom door, his head down and his folder and supplies and crap clutched in his right hand by his side like usual. He cocked his head up to see Amaryllis already here, which kinda tripped him up. If he wasn't the first here he was usually the second, but she definitely didn't seem like the kind of person to be particularly diligent about making it to school with some minutes to spare. Though, honestly, he knew next to nothing about her, and Amos wasn't particularly diligent either but Ma was his ride to and from school so he didn't really have much of a choice.

He didn't say anything to Amaryllis or really signaled at her at all since she seemed pretty occupied. The chair in front of her was just lying out on the floor which was kinda strange. But someone else would probably get it, so he left it alone and took his seat about a desk over and started getting his crap out for first period.

[MethodicalSlacker]

And just as her mind trailed off, a skeleton walked into the room. Amos is omen number seven; quickly and with a downcast glare he took his path to the seat on her right, one desk standing in-between them. Her head is unmoved atop her shoulders. Instead she tracks him with her eyes, an unsurprised look on her face.

They come and they go
It's the passing of time

Amaryllis clicked the volume notch down a couple on her headphones, lowering the volume of the music to whisper-strength. Amos was settling in for class. No breakfast, distraction, or anything. As first impressions went, this was poor. Man's a square. At least have the self-respect to pack a muffin.

Or bring a backpack. Hmm. Maybe not so square then? Amaryllis wasn't too sure. She put her laptop on the table and closed the lid. A Bernie 2020 sticker dominates the middle of the laptop—round and visibly homemade, it sports a blue background, the white outline of his hair, and red letters spelling, "Not Me. Us."

Its satellites are of myriad origins, organized with no rhyme or reason but the aesthetic. There's some local band designs, a smiling red cosmonaut flying on a jetpack, tomato car, a local co-operative ice-cream shop's logo, more in the corners and spans of the laptop's shell, and still some brave conquistadors colonizing the empty space below the keyboard to be counted on the inside.

Amaryllis puts the laptop away into the black Adidas backpack leaning against the side of her desk's right leg. From the same pocket that she puts it in, she takes out her notebook and folder for the class. She opens the plain yellow folder and takes out an assignment, late, single paged, and typed in Garamond. It goes under the Decomposition Notebook with the corner sticking out. Nothing major, just a reading response. Fahrenheit 451 is the book, and middle is the classes' place in it. It's alright? A little heavy-handed. But alright. It's sort of like what some cranks think nowadays is, she thought. She could sort of see it, but people still read; they just read trash.

Forgetting what page she was on put her behind, but usually she just caught up in class or just before. Like today, with Amos. Remember Amos? This is a song about Amos.

"Hey," Amaryllis says, "do you know what the page numbers were for last night?"

[Yugikun]

So, like, there was this one spot by the stands in the playing fields which was pretty much a-ok, far as real-estate went. You’d take your usual spot on the grass, lean back on one of the support beams, then just kinda chill for a bit before everybody else started rolling in. It was pretty cool. You got to see the school populate itself before your eyes, one familiar face at a time. You got to feel the smile on your face form itself when someone in your posse actually popped up, said hey. You got to feel a little bit more alive than before as everybody popped in, one by one, joined whatever convo you were having. The bell would eventually ring, of course, and you’d feel a little bummed as you all had to say ciao and go your separate ways, but at least you wouldn’t feel as tired as you did when you caught the bus at 7:10 in the morning. At least you’d remember why you actually wanted to go to school. What was here for you.

…

…

Penny didn’t go to her usual spot today.

She just kinda walked past, when she reached it. Kept on heading straight to class. There was a Tay-tay song going through her eardrums and she wanted to switch it to something else because god she did not need these lyrics right now but she was fuckin’ tired so she kept on trudging.

My team is losing, battered and bruising
I see the high fives between the bad guys
Leave with my head hung, you are the only one
Who seems to care

She went into the school itself. Got her shit from her locker. Gave a smile and a wave to a junior she’d shot the shit with at a pool party once, though both of ‘em could kinda tell her heart wasn’t really into it this time. She’d climbed the stairs, turned the corner, then reached her destination. Went through the door. Took a moment to glance at two classmates chatting to each other, before dragging her feet past them. Heading to the back of the room, headphones still in her ears. She took her usual spot. Put her elbow on the desk. Put her head in her hand.

Watched the door to see when one of her friends would come in and sit next to her. Waited for the moment she was kinda dreading.

American stories burning before me
I'm feeling helpless, the damsels are depressed

Wondered whether they were even gonna come.

Boys will be boys then, where are the wise men?

Not like they were even gonna be here much longer, after all.

Darling, I'm scared

[Jilly]

Amos turned his head to Amaryllis, his eyebrows slightly raised as he listened and processed her question that he assumed was for him unless she was talking to some sorta ghost. "Oh, yeah, sure thing. It was uhhhh...-"

His eyebrows furrowed as his eyes rose. He turned back around to his desk and started to thumb through his copy. "I think we were supposed to read up past when the main fella there's terrorizing his wife's friends. I get he's trying to make a point but he's kind of a jerk if you ask me."

His eyes darted up in time to see that Penny there also arrive weirdly early and also walk past the downed chair. She looked like she was waiting for her execution, so fair enough. Someone would probably get it.

He looked back at the book and found his place. "Yeah, it was up to, uh, page [xxx]. When Montag's hiding the books in his backyard."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Amaryllis nodded. The description Amos gave served her memory well. She felt differently about the passage, but she wouldn't say so. There wasn't much in the way of tact left in her bloodstream but if there were any this was precisely the kind of low stakes no investment conversation scenario she'd feel well spending said tact in. So silent she stayed, and Amos went on and betrayed the number of the page upon it was writ, the passage in question.

"Thank you," she said simply, "hold on, let me just write...that...down..."

With her ballpoint Bic she scrawled the numbers in thick lettering squared straight and tyrannical in stature along the length of her wrist.

"[x]...[x]...[x]. There."

Behind her back another classmate walked in and sat down and shut out with the wind she went. Penny was a fine girl and Amaryllis looked fondly upon her with a gaze of sickly admiration. She hadn't expected Amos to have the number. This was a trouble. Now there was no reason to go to Penny or anyone else. Not that there ever was. Not that she needed one.

"Some wind out," Amaryllis said. She withdrew her pen from her arm and clicked it closed. "Hope it's done by lunch."

She stole a glance at the clock. Not much more than a minute had passed since she'd done it.

"Probably some of that wind made it in and flipped that over."

Amaryllis made indication towards the chair and on the back-swing brushed subtle a hair from her eye.

[Yugikun]

No cameras catch
My muffled-

Y’know what? Nah. This wasn’t working. Something else…

It’s been a while…

Nah.

Greedaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ooo~-

Nah.

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-

No.

I don’t re-

No. Whatever. Penny supposed today just wasn’t a good mood for music. She put her airpods in her pocket. Shoved her phone down there too — it was probs gonna start blowing up with people going ‘yo where u @?’ and man was 8 AM not the energy to deal with any of that. She was just… gonna sit here. Stare at the window on the other end of the room as if she could actually see the shit outside of it. Try ‘n make herself feel more awake. Maybe listen in on the people chatting in front of her, maybe pop in and be like “hey how ya doin’” if she had a chance to and maybe-

…Hold on.

…

…

…Shit.

“Wait we had a reading today?”