Mister Burger

Mister Burger was 23 year old man living in the shadow of his brother Amn. He wasn’t smart, but you couldn’t call him stupid either. Every person that encountered him had something to say, sometimes he seemed oddly shy around them, kind of social anxiety that makes any man look like a deer staring at the headlights of a moving car. Sometimes he’s shown courage and grit that only some can share.

But everybody seemed to notice the piercing emptyness of his eyes, which struck people in comparsion of his sweet behavior. He was uncomfortable to be around, just because of that. The glooming sadness and anxiety always followed him and this is the main reason people always were leaving his life in a hurry.

His brother Amn on the other hand was a man of power. He was a barista at the dollar store shop, serving trash coffee with such attitude, that people were baffled so much, they actually liked it. He was number one employee for years now, even appearing on the company website, with his “I don’t really appreciate this all” look on his face. People liked him, but he seemed to really lack the real human connection. Not because they were using him, no. The reason was that he shared the emptyness matched to his brother’s anxiety.

They lived in different place, almost in a different time. But they shared the agony of the life that had the best of them.

Mister Burger walks on a trail to mountain, somewhere in Mongolia. The morning mist in his lungs and sunrise in his cold eyes make him look like a character in a novel. Sometimes he really felt like this was the case, like someone made him that way, for some reason, and he lived his life, always reflecting, trying to get to the part when the narrator is going to reveal why.

That’s funny.

On a trail he sees a mongolian man, overseeing the amazing landscape that’s forming from a darkness. He seems at peace, the kind that people disregard, detached. Almost like him, almost. Not certainly.

He approaches the man, and sits beside him, looking at the same serene scene forming in front of them. Sunlight, washing out the darkness of a valley beneath them looks almost opressive, he always thought that. Darkness just exists, within everything, there’s even darkness inside of him in a physical speaking. But the light is always coming in such hostile way, defeating and craddling the... Nevermind, actually.

The man looked at Mister Burger. Hiking gear looked foreign but almost in place right now, he has seen hikers everyday, but this man reminds him of something that haunted him most of his life. The detached look on his face, pale face.

“Yugu-da, mida-mida, mako?“, the man says, and Mister Burger snaps out of his trance. Suddenly he seemes to notice the wind travelling south across the hill, making his hair fall to one side, and he feels cold. The air is cold.

“I’m sorry?“, he asks genuinely paralyzed by the suddenness of the interaction, he wants to look at the man, but again, the strange feeling in his guts tells him not to.

“Yugu-da, mida-mida, mako?“, mongolian man repeats, and finally faces Mister Burger.

“I don’t really understand?..“, Mister Burger tries to explain with gestures that he doesn’t speak mongolian, the man on the other hand seems to be unshaken.

“I’m... Asking... Do you want a protein bar?“, he reaches to his robe, unvawering some bootleg protein bar from his pocket.

Mister Burger looks at the protein bar, and extends his hand to take it, he smiles, though his eyes are glassy.“Thank you”, he open the sweet and takes a bite from it, the sound of crunching nuts barely noticeable in the overwhelming sound of the wind.

Monglian man stands up, and takes a step forward falling of a cliff. Mister Burger tried to reach for his robes, but couldn’t. Is it him? Is it the glossy, empty eyes of Mister Burger actually leading the man to his demise? It’s absurd, it can’t be this. Most importantly the reason why he knows that is the look mongolian man gave him before taking step forward. The piercing, wakeful, full of life eyes of a man, who just... I don’t know. It was almost meaningful. The body of mongol is at the bottom, Mister Burger takes a look at the protein bar he gave to him.

“Yugu-da, mida-mida, mako”, Burger stands up, continuing to ascend the mountain. He just knew that this man said that on purpose. Maybe it was his last words? No, they were “Do you want a protein bar”, certainly not that.

He escaped to Mongolia just because he wanted to find solitude in the world that constantly dismisses him. His mother is dead, father long gone, and brother. The only man that is blood related to him is the one who hates his guts.

When they were kids they always played the game of GLUE. First player is a glue, and the second one is the plank. The main point of the game was that glue has to find object, lift it, and stand on a plank. Maybe that’s why his brother, who always was a plank is so strong? He wanted to chuckle, but couldn’t. The shock from the encounter started to settle, he feeled the short of breath, he really just witnessed a man’s death.

He felt as physically struck, and rushed down the trail, maybe he can help the man, maybe it’s not done yet.

When he finally reaches the place where the man was lying he sees that robes are empty.

Empty glossy eyes of a man. Glossy eyes of empty man. Man of eyes, glossy, empty.

He reached for the protein bar in his pocket, he wanted to feel that it’s real, to anchor himself to something material, and he did. Curled inside his pocket, the protein bar felt like rock in his pocket. He didn’t wonder anymore, that this mongolian man was real, he was.

He blinks, dark wood walls of his room are replacing the beauty of the landscape in his memory. The mongolian man was real, but it was such a long time ago. Where is Meredith? She’s probably playing in the garden. He looks at the photo. Mountain overseeing that dusty Mongolian Valley... How many years ago? I don’t know, and he doesn’t remember. And him clutching that protein bar.

“Yugu-da, mida-mida, mako?“, he laughs, tears as little droplets on a rainy day, racing on his face like on a window of a moving car, when you go 15 miles an hour. He stands up from his chair and grabs a stick, slowly stumbling towards the door. I want to see Meredith. When Mister Burger reaches for the door, he sees reflection of himself in the polished brass of the handle. The glossy eyes, empty eyes. They stare back at him. Even though tears are still trying to finish the final lap on his face. Nothing really changed, or did it?

He watches through a window a figure playing out in the garden, it’s small, but gets bigger when he blinks. He starts to feel anxious again. He let’s his hand drop from the handle, and starts slowly walking back to the wooden table. Opening a big linen book. “My diary, Mister Burger”. But it’s empty. He feels the blank pages, and they feel old. Somewhere when he remembered the words are just coffee stains. “Yugu-da, mida-mida, mako?“, he slams his hand on the table.

He sits at the counter of a coffee shop his brother working at, his reflection in a toster is fresh, he’s in his oversized violet hoodie, and the print of bright golden girrafe on it makes him smile.

“Take your fucking coffee”, words are cutting him out of stagnation, he sees Amn, his brother, his deep stagnant eyes are looking at him. “Thank you”, he says silently, almost to himself, and feels like something hard is landed on his shoulder“You fucking glue, you always were a glue, huh?“, Amn is at it again, he can’t stand that I always were the glue, and he was a plank.“Good coffee”, Mister Burger lied, and tried smiled, looking back to his brother’s face, he almost felt close to him at the moment. He was wishing that this was just a banter.“Don’t look at me with your dead man’s eyes”, he practically slides the hot coffee on the counter to the nearby visitor, “Your shitty coffee”, he says to the customer. Answer to that was gasp, and almost offended look.

Amn looked at Mister Burger, “What do you want here, rat?”Burger said, “I was in Mongolia for last two weeks, the scenery was beautiful”, he talked with some kind of cold detachment. “I watched the forest lit up by the moon’s light, the little fireflies flying around the nearby bushes, and crickets thrilling close to me. It was... Beautiful, Amn”.“I don’t care, brother, all I care is about when you leave the fu...”

Mister Burger reached into his pocket and took out the bootleg protein bar, and hands it to his brother. Burger looks like a dear staring at the headlights of a moving car. Amn takes the sweet and examines it, and then with a sigh throws it in the trash. “So... All I care is about when you leave the fuck out”, he continued.

The protein bar stared at Mister Burger from the bin, and Mister Burger stared back. He started to cry, remembering the mongolian man, and his bright eyes. People around him, that were tolerating him at the moment left, leaving the tips to his brother.

“What? You so sad that I took out the trash?“, Amn splashed water at Mister Burger.

The water almost woke up Mister Burger. He stands up and walks toward the door, he’s just too tired to do anything. Even walk. Mister Burger drop to his knees, as he’s too tired to continue walking, he turns around to see his brother calling him names with other people. There is nothing and nothing will become everything, because it’s the way the story goes.

The only man that was actually kind to the Burger and didn’t walk off a cliff a second after was his father. He was F1 pilot, and pretty successfull one. He always said, “Burger”. And just looked him right in the eyes, without ever flinching. Unfortunately, when Mister Burger was 14, his father’s racing car went straight into the woods and dissapeared. I don’t want to tell that Burg is completely miserable, no, he has his strengths. Like neverending will to live and intellect that helps him observe something that everyone else completely misses.

Like me. But I don’t want to jump straight into that.

Mister Burger worked almost all his life as a mattress tester, the only job that he could find that didn’t require him to speak with people constantly. His employer, polish name with the name that somehow resembled a pickle sandwich was basicly locking Burger inside the room with a bunch of mattresses. And then Burger was supposed to walk around in complete darkness and sit on each of them. If at some time he stayed sitting longer than 5 seconds. Polish man approved the mattress to be in the shop. And Mister Burger loved his job, he liked to wonder in the darkness. He loved darkness because it was constant and passive, the light on the other hand was opressing presence, the one presence that made his eyes tear when he came out for his coffee break after 4 hours of being trapped in a room.

Meredith was his coworker whom he adored, she was tall, dark haired and always looking at him the kind of observation you expect from human resource management. She worked in the office, maybe she was a lower class manager, or just a clerk, I don’t really know, and apparently Mister Burger doesn’t remember. But what he remembers is the ritual of their coffee break. She smoked a lot, and I mean a lot. Maybe two packs a day, she always said that the less work she has the more she smokes and Meredith had a lot of free time. Twice a day, every four hours they met at the storage unit. Meredith shared her dreams with Mister, she always wanted to visit this place, and that place, and she always wanted to do something with her life, but for some reason didn’t. Well, I say for some reason, but she was tied to her workplace. The litted fire of her adventrous nature was not enough to wash away the creeping fear of becoming unsuccessfull.

Burger always encouraged her, saying that it’s worth the risk, to just say that she’s done and do what she liked the most. From her perspective she liked to dream more than actually doing, it required nothing, and had no risks. So the words of encouragment were met with cold stare and another excuse.

At some point of time she took a vacation. Burger was happy for her, imagining that when she comes back she will share some stories with him, and he will finally speak to her about the Mongolia, and the man he met in the mountains, the only one who shared unconditional kindness to him. Maybe he will tell her about his brother, who threw that kindness in the dollar store trash bin. Maybe... Maybe they had something in common, they both liked to dream.

And yes, Meredith returned, but something has changed within her. The dark curly hairs which always had to sharpen her facial features were gone. She looked pale, but here she was, in her white collar. Standing in front of him, with a ciggarette in her hands. She was fresh from chimeotherapy. She chuckled, that was not a vacation she said to him, “I wish”.

“Do you think I’ll leave someone like you unsupervised?“, she joked, but he felt strange after her words. “But seriously, I can’t leave the job, and Polish man won’t give me any more sick leaves, and I... I don’t know, Burger. Apparently life is a bitch, huh?”

Yes it is, the life is a bitch. And the thoughts that are appearing in his head. Maybe that is him, maybe that is because of him she’s sick? Maybe if he was working without taking a breaks and meeting her, maybe then she would’ve been okay? And the most interesting part, is that maybe it was true.

“Burger”, she looks at him, in his night gown of uniform, with the puffy ball hat. Looking like a complete idiot. Her eyes slowly drifting to his and he’s avoiding the contact. The sunglasses go from her bag, into the hand. And then she puts them on his face.“Can you take me to Mongolia, please?“.

Note from author:I don’t know if I’ll continue to write this. My fantasy is taking me to some strange places, I just write without thinking.