I haven’t been overly close with my family over the past few years. I started to regret that. I found myself too busy to spend any time with them. I rarely called my mother or grandmother. A health scare came up making me reflect on how little effort I’ve put into the important people in my life. As a step to fix that, I invited my grandmother out for lunch. She, of course, picked to go to Red Lobster.
I didn’t have anything against the restaurant. I just wasn’t a big fan of seafood, but I love her and agreed to go. I arrived first and wondered how much it cost the franchise to have all their buildings pretty much look the same. If you haven’t been inside one lately, most haven’t changed since they opened. A tank of lobsters sat at the front, the air pump working overtime. I only saw a handful of the poor creatures hiding in a corner together. I never could eat lobster after seeing how they were treated before getting cooked. And yet I agreed to support a business that killed them by the millions each year. I shook off those thoughts when a cute waitress came over. I was guided to my table, and my waitress got me started with water.
I waited for my grandmother. The restaurant was pretty slow and empty. There were only a few other guests that looked to be around my grandmother’s age range. I bet when she showed up, they would know each other. There weren’t too many community-run programs for retired folks so they all went to the same ones. I teased her saying she knew everyone above sixty in our city. As time passed, I started to get worried about her. She wasn’t very good at using her phone so I wasn’t sure how to contact her. I sent my mother a message hoping they might be together. A few more minutes went by before my mother got back to me.
My grandmother completely forget we were meeting today. She and my mother were at lunch making us all feel silly over the whole thing. She wouldn’t want to leave where they were eating, and wouldn’t want to eat a second lunch. I felt awkward just leaving after finding out about their mistake. I sent them a message saying we could have lunch tomorrow or another day. I decided to stay. I mean, I might as well, right?
The waitress came back and I told her what happened. She gave a genuine laugh saying she’s heard stories like that pretty often while working there. She took away the second menu and I gave her mine because I already knew what I wanted. On the table was an advertisement saying the endless shrimp promotion was going on. I was weird when it came to food. I didn’t like shrimp that much and hated the texture of coconut. But put those two things together and I loved it. I told her I would like to go with the promotion and saw the warm smile fade from her face for a moment. She forced one back on and nodded to go back to the kitchen to put my order in.
I wondered why she acted like that. Was the restaurant low on shrimp? Did she somehow get tipped less if it was a promotion order? I swore to give her an extra tip just in case. I pondered the reason for her slight mood change and kept checking my phone as I waited. I must look pretty weird by myself. I always thought a person eating alone at a restaurant was a bit odd, but I was really out of my element. It may just be the town I live in, but this place smelled like the countless over fifty folks that filled the booths at every dinner time rush.
I looked up from my phone when a hot plate was placed in front of me. I thanked my server but didn’t see them by the time I put my phone away. The huge plate of shrimp looked great. I started to eat but quickly paused when the lack of noise drew my attention. I could have sworn at least four other people were in some booths nearby when I last looked up. Did they finish eating when I waited for my food? A set of them needed to walk by my booth. I should have noticed them leaving.
I looked around seeing the entire place was empty. Cars outside passed by as if the world was completely normal. Some faint music played overhead that didn’t help with the sudden lack of human voices. I forced myself to shrug it off to keep eating.
I’ve never been a big eater. I figured a plate or two would be enough and I could leave. I easily finished off the first plate and a server I hadn’t seen before was right on task. He set down another with a wide smile. He looked kind, and yet tired. Then again, anyone in a customer-facing job normally looked tired. I thanked him and he gave me a smile that almost felt like he knew something I didn’t. Without a word, he turned to walk away.
“Ok… that was weird….” I said to myself.
The music sputtered out making the only sound in the place of the air pump in the lobster tank for a minute or so. I found myself going back to eating no matter how much my stomach started to turn from stress. This all felt weird. I didn’t like it. The music cut back in. I expected myself to slow down in the middle of finishing the second plate of shrimp. To my shock, I emptied it. I’ve never really needed to eat this much in one sitting. My hand moved on its own for the buns. I honestly didn’t like the buns they served but I quickly emptied the basket.
I wasn’t hungry, my stomach didn’t feel much of anything. The fact I kept eating despite not really enjoying the taste worried me. A hand reached over to take my empty plate. I looked up to try and speak to my server, mouth open, and yet I could only say a small thank you. He set down a third plate of coconut shrimp and a filled basket of buns. That smile came back on his face. This time I recognized the expression. It was one of pity.
He walked away again, my body moving on its own to the food set before me. I started to internally panic. I simply could not stop myself from eating. I could reach my one hand down to check my phone, but only for a few seconds at a time. With my thumb, I tried calling my mother. Of course, the call didn’t go through. Not a single call or message did. The internet refused to work as well. I put away my phone and reached over to take a sip of water to try and calm myself down.
As I ate, I tried to figure things out. The only time I could control what I was doing besides glances at my phone as if the movements were related to eating. I could pause to clean my mouth with my napkin or switch to eating a bun instead of shrimp. My hands shook from stress, but they didn’t stop moving. Another plate cleared and a new one was in its place.
Before the server left, I made a sound to finally catch his attention.
“B-bathroom? I asked in a shaking voice.
He raised a single finger to point in the direction of the washroom signs. Then he left with my dirty plate in hand. I finally got up from the booth, but my feet got locked into a path to the washrooms. I took a good look trying to find anyone else. My hopes were shattered by an empty restaurant.
The moment I walked inside the washroom, whatever kind of weird spell my body was under stopped. I could move freely inside the room. I shouted for help, which really didn’t do anything. There wasn’t a window to try and escape from, and the only thing that loaded on my phone was this sub-thread. I decided to type everything down and keep the tab open just in case. I need to get my thoughts down somewhere.
I washed my hands and paced around trying to think. The clock on my phone froze, so I don’t know how long I spent in the bathroom. A pull started at my feet so I stuffed my phone back in my pocket. My feet took over to drag me back to my booth, a hot plate of coconut shrimp waiting.
Plate after plate came, and I can say I’m really over the taste of coconut shrimp. At least they had some other options. When I couldn’t stomach the taste, I could switch and ask for something else. I couldn’t do anything but think as I ate.
How long would this go on? What if I got sick of eating the same thing over and over again? Once in college, I was flat broke, as most students are. I stole leftovers from work until the smell of the same type of pasta made me ill. It took me three years to be able to eat it again. Was that going to happen here? Would I keep eating until I couldn’t stand the taste of the limited shrimp offers and yet not be able to stop eating them? More dread came creeping into my mind. Without anything to stop me, I started to wonder what this meant. Would I ever get out of this cycle? Or was I truly stuck eating an endless amount of shrimp? That wasn’t possible. This just couldn’t happen. There wasn’t an endless amount of shrimp in the world after all… I considered the idea this wasn’t happening. Even if I somehow had a mental breakdown, this felt pretty damn real. The heat from the fresh buns and the tastes I already got started to get bored of may be made by my mind and yet that didn’t make it all less real.
I lost count of how many plates I went through. My server must have taken pity on me and switched over to a different shrimp dish. This time it was just some simple grilled shrimp with butter. But it helped settle my taste buds.
I also was able to take a second trip to the washroom as a break to write all this out. After the pounds of food I’ve eaten, my stomach hasn’t changed at all. I don’t feel full, or hungry. I just feel tired. The outside of the restaurant is the same as when I walked in. Cars still go by as if everything is normal. My battery on my phone is slowly going down. I fear I only have one more bathroom trip before it dies completely.
I found my body moving on its own again back into the dining room. I wanted to cry when I sat down but the tears wouldn’t come. I lost track of the plates. The texture of the meat started to get to me. Each time I took another bite I wanted to throw up. To scream and cry but nothing came. Just more of the damn shrimp. On the verge of losing my mind, the server placed down a plate of shrimp pasta which saved my sanity. A small change felt as if I’d been given a second chance.
I finally broke free to the washroom, my phone had under five percent battery left.
Am I going to be stuck here forever? Just eating damn shrimp? I never really wanted to get married and have kids but now I mourned the fact that choice was stripped away from me. I found myself spiralling into a breakdown in one of the stalls, thinking about how much I lost being stuck here forever. I’ll never be able to tell my family how much I loved them. I didn’t do so when I had the chance. I’ll never take trips across the world, or find the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Or even just take an easy Sunday at home doing nothing as a reward for a hard week.
And my death… could I even die now? What did endless even mean? Would I be stuck here doing the same thing over and over again until I no longer understood the concept of other things? In time would my brain be unable to keep any memories of what I loved in my life before I got here? Thankfully I wasn’t forced back out of the room as I let myself sob over the terrible thoughts of my future. I feared I was on the track of becoming something beyond human understanding because of this endless existence.
My phone is going to die soon. I’ll leave it here in case it somehow escapes this place. I’ll post what I’ve written so far, hoping someone sees what happened to me. At the very least, there is now a chance someone remembers my feelings at this moment if I go on forever and the memories fade. I don’t want to accept this is going to be my future. But it’s starting to seem like the case.
Please, remember this happened to me. And do me a favor, get the Captain’s Platter at Red Lobster or something if you’re still dead set on going to that place after reading all of this.