Because I could not stop for death, I work almost for free.
Welcome to Deipneus’s Delights
(Deipneus was the Greek god of feasts. Maybe Random House didn’t hire me for that editor position, but I’m damn well going to use the knowledge I paid good money for.)
MENU
DRINKS
BOTTLED WATER ……………………………………………………………..………………………………… $17
(I know that’s pricey, but I have $80,000 in student loans.)
ALCOHOL MENU
Please note there is a two drink minimum.
(I could have been a lawyer. I aced the LSATs. But I didn’t want to exploit people. Did I mention the student loans? Also, there were the dreams of being a writer, broken dreams. There will be drinking, and I don’t like drinking alone.)
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APPETIZERS
SOUPS
TOMATO
(Yeah, there’s only one choice of soup. I didn’t write a paper on the feminist postcolonial revisionary claims of Jane Asten so that I could spend all day chopping carrots.)
NACHO CHIPS. Organic blue tortillas harvested from the maize fields between the Pacific coast and Sierra Madre mountains, where perchance the footsteps of Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes still linger, generously showered with both yellow and white cheese fermented from the teats of virgin bovines. Not bad, huh? Random House doesn’t know what they’re missing.
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ENTREES
CHICKEN AND GLUTEN-FREE WAFFLES. Note: This item is gluten free but not cruelty free, so you’re going to have to make a difficult choice. Don’t get me started on difficult choices.
LAWYER SPECIAL. Big fat burger, full of itself, greasy and excessive. There should be plenty left over, which I will be able to salvage out of the garbage to supplement my nutritional requirements, given that what I make here barely covers rent.
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VEGETARIAN OPTIONS
THE MARY SHELLY. Yes, the author of Frankenstein was a closet lettuce licker. These delightful victuals will take you back to the Romantic era. A vital wheat gluten vegeburger soaked in canola oil and high fructose corn syrup. You’ve been warned.
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LIGHTER FARE
Life is neither light nor fair. It’s dark, like an abyss with no bottom, that sucks our very marrows and rends the bindings of our souls. I write a little poetry too. Bon appétit.
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SIDE DISHES
SALT. There will be no looking back, à la Lot’s wife, when you taste this heavenly pink Himalayan soy-free sodium chloride, hand crafted by nuns ……………………………….. $19
PEPPER. Free-range peppercorns picked when Helios’s chariot is at its zenith and harvest’s bounty is in its fullest richness ………..…………………………………………………… $35
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DESSERTS
That’s what I’m getting now, my just desserts. I chose passion over money, and now I’m paying the price. And so, to quote the Bard, “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state.”
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Scott Talbot Evans has been published in Amazing Stories, Weekly Humorist, Robot Butt, Shoreline of Infinity, Creepypod, and Crimeucopia. He is a three-time finalist in the New Yorker cartoon contest. His latest available novel is The Love Police. Come say hi on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/social-scott.bsky.social