January 10th 2023
We were on that same road trip again, the endless one. This time somewhere past California on a highway that lies off the map. We passed by a mossy cemetery, one filled with hundreds of acres worth of stones and various stages of decay. The tears were still drying from the last freshly tilled plot and yet, surprisingly enough, McDonald’s had just built a restaurant into the entrance. All vines and neon yellow and red meant to induce hunger in the human brain. It looked beautifully blunt-force, like most everything does in here. That same answer staring all of us right in the face in a million different ways every single day, and yet, somehow, still keeping itself nestled, hidden in plain site. We call it human nature, you know? All those damn stresses and aches and pains. Like the empty galaxy, and the way in which we speak silently to one another one without even knowing it. We call it energy in here, you know? Say things like ‘the vibes are off’.
And the vibes were most certainly off.
I remember thinking it was kind of twisted for them to build a McDonald’s in a graveyard of all places, but there was a full line out the door of people waiting, standing stark still and salivating.
‘Who would do something like that?’ I thought to myself silently (albeit knowing you’d answer regardless).
‘They would,’ you responded without moving your lips, your knuckles white wrapped around the leathered, skinned steering wheel. Your eyes staring straight ahead. Stoic. Over it. Handsome.
I glanced over my shoulder one last time at the line of people as they drifted off into our peripheral. You breathed a sigh of relief over that. Something about lucidity and how it tends to combust in on itself. My subconscious thanked you for continuing onward, with the images of coffins and the million ways in which you can end up in one drifting through my head despite every protest. They call those intrusive thoughts in here, you know. Neither of us likes it.
I thought about the line of willing patrons, and how they’d probably think all of that twisted stuff too, despite their protests otherwise. How they probably secretly all enjoyed it. That’s the reason why they post pictures of things like this online, you know? Make dark jokes about it, threaten anonymously, laugh about ‘what is the world coming to’, debate behind a grin on their TikTok’s. It’d be a brief headline in the news until the reporters got their next big bite and the audience got their next big fight in. All the while they’d still flock to that goddamn McDonald’s in the graveyard. Take their photos, eat their meals, post and argue more about it. Until everyone was full and ready to digest the next topic swallowed whole. Just another day in gloomy cheeseburger paradise folks. Where things like the truth get gobbled up by the next morning and the hunger hits at 100 miles per second with no prior warning. Ping, ping, pinging on the brain.
(Your neighbor wants to know what you’re thinking about, too.)
And the McDonald’s Marketing Department would get a firm pat on the back for it. In every which way. A heavily induced congratulations from the CEO, a jealous coworker’s firm squeeze, and all the gauze of the publicity stunt rolling in on itself. Like not paying attention to highway crashes, or symbolism. And I’m willing to bet that crick in their spine would bother them twice as much as usual the next morning.
I turned to face ahead right before you woke me up.
Alien Translations 