Jon sighed and adjusted his tie for the hundredth time that night. He could of taken the job at McDonalds, but no. He had to be suckered in by the help wanted ad looking for someone to greet and show customers to their tables. He should have been alerted that something was wrong, when he read the description of the restaurant in the ad. He should have been tipped off that something was amiss when the restaurant described itself as, ‘a refined café, offering other worldly customers the most unique meal of their lives’. But Jon had just shrugged it off and taken the job without any idea of the ‘other worldly customers’ or ‘unique meal’ that they offered.
Jon looked around him at the customers and shuddered. It was so weird seeing animated and fictional characters sitting down and eating other characters, and it was only made weirder by the choices each person was making for their meals.
Just last night, Speedracer had walked through the door and ordered the Gilmore girls for lunch. Seeing the badly animated character, gorge himself on the screaming TV characters made Jon feel very unnerved. It was even worse inside the private booths. Once he had checked one of the booths when he heard screaming. Screaming wasn’t uncommon in the Café because most meals did a lot of crying while they were being eaten and digested. What stood out about the scream was that Jon recognized it as one of the customers. Without think, he opened the private booth and looked in. What he saw Snow White, Cinderella and Alice doing to a shrunken Inu-yasha would haunt him till the day he died. Who would of thought that Disney girls could be so wild? He would never again be able to watch a Disney movie the same way again. In the private booths, most meals ended up inside the customers, just sometimes not through the mouth.
Another thing that had Jon bugged was that the hungry patrons never questioned why they were at the café or why they were so eager to eat other living-breathing people. Jon got to the entrance of the café by walking down a long alley a few blocks from his home, but he has overheard customers say the route to the café was different. Some said they found the entrance in the forest, others in the middle of the desert. It was never consistent with anyone.
But perhaps the most distressing thing about Ravénous Café for Jon was that no one seemed to remember the café twice. People that he’d spoken to previous times would come in and have no idea who he was. He hadn’t been working at there long, but he expected to be remembered once. The most damning evidence that no one remembered the café twice, was that he’d seen people he served before, be served as a meal while screaming with no idea where they were. It seemed most likely that whenever someone left the restaurant via the door or digestion, they lost all memory of the Ravénous Café.
Jon straitened up when he saw two customers get up and head for his way. He put on his phoniest smile and spoke his rehearsed line. “Come back anytime to the Ravénous Café. Where we serve you in more ways as one.” The two customers laughed and left the café. Idly, Jon wondered if the next time he saw them, would they be the ones being served up as meals?
“What a nice couple. They even offered a tip, but I turned them down. We don’t charge customers any money, so why should they tip me.” Jon turned and gave a real smile to the only sane person he’d met since starting this job. Never mind that the person was really a bunny girl, who carried people out of the kitchen to be eaten alive, all the while smiling brightly. Her name was Bunny and she was the server to every customer that walked in through the door.
“I wouldn’t call them a nice couple. That was Lust and Gluttony from the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, they are evil real pieces of work.”
Bunny stared at Jon blankly and he sighed at seeing the confused look on her face. Like the characters that walked in through the door, Bunny had no idea that they were from fictional series. He’d tried to explain it to the anthro-bunny, but she had just smiled blankly and said she understood, but of coarse, she didn’t. Jon had given up trying to explain, figuring that Bunny wasn’t capable of understanding the strangeness of their customers or their job.
“Whatever Jon,” Bunny responded with her big toothy grin. “I think table three is ready to order so I better get over there. By the way, I think you have a customer waiting behind you.”
Jon nodded dully and watched the beautiful bunny girl strut over to table three. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, working up his resolve to turn around and face another bizarre character that should technically not exist. He put on his phony smile and turned to the customer.
“Welcome to the Ravénous Café, the only place where everyone’s on the menu. I’m Jon and I’ll be showing you to your seats.”
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