Death Seth

A Story by Kaden L.

Seth is a fast food employee who makes a risky decision.

Seth dug into his pocket and grabbed his vape. It didn’t suck the life out of him as much as his job. He walked through the kitchen and out the back door where the employee break area was. It was an old, worn out picnic table with cheap fold-up chairs on every side. Sitting down on one of the chairs was Bruce, a coworker he could tolerate. Bruce was on his phone, but once the backdoor closed, he looked up and saw Seth. They both greeted each other by nodding their heads up. Seth sat on the chair opposite to Bruce.

“Oh my gosh,” Seth said as he was sitting down, “that stupid hag cursed me out, again.” He rubbed the temples on his head.
“Which one, dude?” Bruce asked.

“Ms. Boyd, I think. I don’t know. They all look the same.”

“Ugh, yeah, her. What was she ranting about this time?”
Seth took a deep breath, “the same stuff I have no control over. Her burger was missing tomatoes or something, I guess.” He balled his fist. “I only serve the food; I don’t even know why she keeps yelling at me or you guys - the other servers.” Seth’s face began to strain. “I swear, man, I’m gonna-” he slapped his fist in the palm of his other hand.

He paused for a bit, relaxing his face. “But I need this job. I gotta save money for college, you know?”

“Yeah, man,” Bruce said, not looking up from his phone. “My family is broke, and I lost my other job. My mom will kick me out if I lose this one, so I just ignore what those customers say. But it does get harder every day to not say anything.”

“Yeah, I agree with the whole ‘it gets harder every day,’” Seth said. “Sometimes, I feel as though I am one decision away from losing it and ruining my life - one decision away from throwing their food at them and quitting.” He took a deep breath. “Gosh, I hate this job.”

Seth slouched at the table for thirty minutes, not saying anything. After his break was over, he rubbed his temples, wiped his hands down his face, and stood up. He paused and didn’t move for a minute; he stared at the ground with his hands in his pockets. Groaning, he forced himself to move and went back to work.

At 10 o’clock at night, he was finally free, and he clocked out. As he was exiting through the back door, he heard a whisper. “Seth,” the voice said. He stopped and whipped his head around, making sure that heard something and he was not crazy.

He saw nothing but the setting of his great fast food job that he loved so much. “Seth,” the voice said, again.

“What, huh?” Seth asked, looking around, once again. “Nuh-uh, nope.” He ran to his car and pulled on the door handle. A black void filled his vision once opened the door; he couldn’t see the ground nor his car nor anything else. But he did hear the voice.

“Careless mistake to leave your car unlocked all day,” it said. “Careless, what a word. You and it are alike. You want to engage in violence with customers because they yell at you. Careless.”

Seth couldn’t speak. Any word he wanted to say couldn't even be forced out. He didn’t know if he was too scared or if he physically couldn’t speak. Every train of thought was derailing and crashing into one another.

“Let me make things a bit less confusing,” the voice said. “I am Death, and I am here to give you an offer. This offer will give you what you desire: satisfaction.”

That only confused him even more. Random sporadic thoughts collided with each other in his head. Death? Why? What is-? I don’t even-? What? Why? Why? Why? What?

“Still confused?” Death said. “That is what I expected, but it shouldn’t affect your decision. You know exactly what you want; you don’t need to say anything. From the black void emerged the hand of a skeleton. “Shake my hand if you wish for satisfaction. If you don’t want to accept my offer, then step back, and everything will go back to normal.”

Seth, of course, wanted things to go back to normal. He wanted to get away from Death. He wanted to go back to his fast food job where he was treated like a disposable diaper. He wanted to go back to the feeling of being one decision away from violence. He wanted satisfaction.

Seth saw his hand glow amidst the black void. He extended it and shook Death’s hand. The black void turned into reality, where Seth was before making that one decision. He got into his car and drove home for the night.

The next day, he clocked in, and nothing happened for a while. Seth paced, twirled his hair, checked the time, and lord knows what else throughout the day. Every customer interaction was pleasant (oh, the humanity), and every time, he would get more and more dissatisfied.

It was an hour before he would clock out, and Seth took the order of a customer he recognized: Ms. Boyd. She ordered a double cheeseburger with no tomatoes and extra mayonnaise plus a medium fry.

Once it was made, he took it to her table and gave it to her. He forgot to ask if she would like any dipping sauces, so he asked her.

“If I wanted any dipping sauces, I would’ve said-so,” she snapped. She mumbled and cursed under her breath as he walked away. Seth took a deep breath and ignored her comments.

Seth was stopped as he was walking to the cash register to her saying, “hey, you, come back here.” As much as he didn’t want to, he turned around and came back; her burger had its bun off, and she was pointing it at him. “I said no tomatoes!” She slammed her fist onto the table and began screaming nonsense, like a toddler who doesn’t want to eat their vegetables.

“Ma’am,” Seth said, “I’m sorry-'' he was cut off. She threw the burger onto his shirt. Her medium fry was swept from the table with her hand, all the while she was spouting how stupid he was and how his generation was just so lazy.

Seth didn’t take a deep breath. Instead, he lunged at her and began hurling his fists onto her face, getting blood all over it. She fought back and clenched his neck, but that did no good. He kept wailing on her with every punch getting harder and harder.

Bruce and some other employees jumped in and pulled Seth off of her. He fought back and kept swinging his fists, some landing on the people holding him back. “Dude,” Bruce said in his ear, “stop, please.” He stopped only because he had been dragged away from her.

Seth was fired and sent to jail. He was seen all over the news and social media. “Crazy Teen Almost Murders Old Lady” and “This New Generation is Doomed?” were both of many news headlines. He wasn’t aware of those headlines, but he knows he’s on the news; he knows what he did was careless, and he’s not satisfied.