AT THE ONLY FRIENDLY’S OPEN WHEN THE WORLD ENDS — K.B. CARLE
/The fries arrive soggy but crimped. The smell of grease lingers in the red leather seats that suction to exposed skin. The waitresses wear red shirts with exaggerated triangle collars. Say Welcome to Friendly’s with signature smiles, cover the big F for Friendly’s on the back wall with their final paychecks, play hopscotch on brown tiled floors. Balance black trays on their shoulders, carrying the Mushroom Cheese-Mania Burger, the Sriracha Burger, a serving of Buffalo Mac & Cheese.
At the only Friendly’s open when the world ends, no one talks about the fires. How the sky is always red, how their lungs burn and everything tastes like lead dipped in Tabasco. Nobody talks about how the children can’t stop coughing. How the women blister. How the men are gone. How someone—or everyone—thinks there’s still time to try again to save the world or—maybe—time to save themselves.
At the only Friendly’s open when the world ends a woman reenacts her first date with a crash test dummy, pretending he is the man she should have married. She orders the Clown Sundae. He orders one Monster Sundae with extra horns made of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups split in two. Their waitress smiles that signature smile, asks will that be all? The woman nods, offers to pay the waitress in cash, says could you hurry? We’ve got somewhere to be. The waitress nods but leaves the money so the woman takes it instead. She folds one bill into a paper crane, the other into a heart.
At the only Friendly’s open when the world ends, a woman kisses a dummy, pretending he is the man she should have married while reenacting her first date. She tastes peanut butter and vanilla on his tongue, sits back and whispers, delicious.
K.B. Carle lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her flash has been published in a variety of places including Good River Review, HAD, Waxwing, Bending Genres, No Contact, and elsewhere. K.B.’s stories have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and her story “Soba” was included in the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. Her story “A Lethal Woman” will be included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at kbcarle.com or on Twitter @kbcarle.
