Burger Time

THE SCENE OPENS to a large bustling restaurant looking something akin to a upscale Applebee's. Waiters and waitresses scurry about attending to the orders and needs of the various families, business men and women, couples, and groups of friends who together form tonights batch of customers within their place of employment. The camera pans about the restaurant and finally locks onto the serving tray of a pretty attractive young waitress who is probably trying to work her way through college or maybe just get some spare cash to buy that next NIN CD or maybe another pair of shoes. Probably shoes. To your disapointment the camera follows only the sandwhich the waitress is carrying and not her other more noticeable features. Coming to a stop the waitress places the hamburger in front of a patron sitting in a booth. Panning upwards from the table we see the grinning smile of the patron to which the burger was served...

Waitress, "There you go sir, one Hackney Burger, well done. Is there anything else I can get for you tonight?"

Doc Placebo, "Thanks Miss, that's all for now."

As the waitress leaves me to my burger look down at the slab of dead beef wrapped in lettuce, tomatoes, melted cheese, and two slices of toasted bread and I smile. Not a smile out of hunger, but one of a strangely sadistic nature not usually seen when once looks at a hamburger or even a Hackney Burger for that matter.

Doc Placebo, "I'll bet a million euros the UWA did not expect to see me, the Omega Sin, here, in Hackney Burger. A small Chicago hamburger restaurant chain founded by a one Jim Masterson, possibly a relative of a former European Champion. but that is not the point here tonight."

Doc Placebo, "I'd say its a safe wager that I would not have been seen here tonight... but then that begs the question why am I here? Eating a random hamburger? And when have you seen me eat anything nearly as putrid as this filthy American cuisine?"

Doc Placebo, "Never is the answer to the former, but first a little bite before the latter."

Grasping the burger with two almost clumsy hands quite obviously more familiar with the handling of foods prepared with a different discipline of the culinary arts I raise the burger to my face and take a large satisfying bite out of the hamburger. Removing a little bit of mustard clinging to my lips with a napkin I smile back into the direction of the camera.

Doc Placebo, "Ah... the taste of pure fermented Chicago anguish."

Doc Placebo, "Where others might taste the burger I taste the pain that has been felt by the hundreds of thousands throughout the history of Chicago so that you Americans could have the luxury of eating this little burger."

Taking another bite I savor the taste of the dead animal flesh being mashed between my calcium rich teeth. Finishing with a quick sip of water I begin to speak again.

Doc Placebo, "What am I talking about? Well I'll tell you!"

Doc Placebo, "Stockyards, STOCKYARDS!"

Doc Placebo, "Does the phrase ring a bell? Probably not given the Kalibur of my opponents tomorrow."

Doc Placebo, "Under the Windy City's history you'll find more than the Bulls and Michael Jordan. You'll find the sufferings and the deaths of abused immigrants by the wealthy... and all this for WHAT? Why did MY fellow Europeans have to die America? They had to die so that you could have your precious Big Mac today."

Doc Placebo, "That's right, taste that McDonalds burger tomorrow a little bit more becuase thats more than fast food your gulping down. That's the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of the immigrants that died in Packing Towns just a few miles from here. All that for just $5.99."

Doc Placebo, "Still want your number 3 with fries?"

Doc Placebo, "It was only a few miles from here that Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was set."

Doc Placebo, "A tale of poor immigrants trying to make it in the United States traveling to Chicago with the promise of new work. Stockyards! STOCKYARDS! Poor Jurgis heard."

Doc Placebo, "It was an astonishing sight for Jurgis to behold as well, I'm sure. Gigantic buildings, tens of thousands of cattle, or so I read, and smoke billowing into the sky as if the building itself were the source of all the clouds in the heavens. He had heard stories of course. Stories of men being taken apart piece by piece while peforming the work required of them by their watchful bosses in the yards. How could that happen to him? He was strong, he was young, he wasnt like those weak old men. He was not like them at all. Fairytales, nothing more."

Doc Placebo, "Ah if only he could have turned back, he would have saved himself a lot of hurt, and maybe his wife's life. But thats all nothing but a work of fiction..."

Doc Placebo, "Yet..."

Taking another bite from my Hackney Burger I follow up with a few fries and katsup which came on the side with my meal of exploited immigrants.

Doc Placebo, "There is a ring of truth to some of Sinclair's diction. The meat packing industry had real problems in Chicago. The great fire! Haymarket... the race riots of 1919 pop into mind along with what could be called gross health code negligence in today's society."

Doc Placebo, "Many immigrants came here seeking work that found that work in packingtowns became trapped. Serving thier bosses as if they my Minions. And kicked to the curb just as easily while families starve, die, or daughters fall victem to prostitution rings. JUST so they could survive and..."

Doc Placebo, "...all for this."

I hold up my Hackney burger to the camera and smile.

Doc Placebo, "Hungry?"

Doc Placebo, "I know I am."

I make sure to take the largest bite of my burger yet and proceed to chew the burger several times. I wouldnt want to choke and hurt myself would I? That would harly be paying Jurgis and his family sacrafice much gratitude if I just went and died choking on what his wife Ona gave her life for would I? No that wouldnt do at all America. Not at all. People just have no respect. I put the burger down quite satisfied with myself.

Doc Placebo, "But come tomorrow I'll be making a new chapter in Chicago history for the future Cundiffs and X-Kals of the world to weep over."

Doc Placebo, "Tomorrow I create my own atrocity in these blood soaked streets."

Doc Placebo, "Tomorrow I'll punish you X-Kal. And if you decide not to show I'll punish your little understudy Jeremy Cundiff."

Doc Placebo, "I dont care who decides to show, tomorrow I write and put a close to THIS CENTURY'S FIRST CHAPTER in Chicago's sorrowful history. Tomorrow I show you all once more why I am who I am. Why I am the OMEGA SIN!"

Doc Placebo, "Bon apetit."

Nodding to the camera I pick up my burger once more and begin eating with a renewed vengence as I sink my teeth into the anguish of the ancient sufferings of my kinsmen. The camera fades to darkness leaving you with nothing but the wet sounds of my sloppy eating as my teeth crush the cow meat over and over until there is no more.

~fin~