Red.
Green.
Steel.
Wood.
About, smell the ash, 6:24?
It was a Wednesday, or a Thursday
No.
A Wednesday
Though the date wasn’t exactly on my mind
I wasn’t expecting to remember that night
Order. Ash. Dough.
Same old, same old
Ceiling vents long since aged, exhausted
Me, exhausted
6 years and 6 hours unreplaced, respectively
Sauced covered cuticles, ash coating the sweat lined hairs of my forearms
As I drew another pizza from the stone
Like the fire was all I knew, come nightfall I was used to it
Another call, always business
But not this one
The cord, a spiral constricting boa
Suffocating me before I even knew
The Manager’s wife spoke with her eyes first
“It’s for you”
A pizza began to burn
My mouth was already dry
I’d never forget the taste
And while I held the call, my hand shaked
Was it my mother?
No, she spoke to me and assured me herself
She had not been harmed
My arms stiffened
The phone dropped from my hand like a barbell
I turned to see my boss at my side, the vents struggling for air
“What’s wrong,” he asked me
“I need a breather,” I said
“My brother took some medicine and now he’s unwell.”
But Covid was a threat still then, and I had money I needed to earn
So I can only imagine what it was like for him
The silence in the hospital room that night
But I’m sure its not the silence he had expected to hear