Author's Notes: So before you read this story you must know the story behind the story. Our teacher challenged us to write 'tension and scene building' he then wrote out all of the stuff we had to use within it. Characters (two), and an item. I chose Cheerleader, Homeless Person, and Sequined Dress. Thus spawned this atrocity.

*ahem* This belongs to me. Yes? Yes.

Kelly sauntered- as best she could with heels on –up to the Meaty Meats Meat counter. The employee behind it had massive, pulsing zits and oozing pimples.

Eeeeeewwwww. Kelly thought, recoiling slightly. She probably hasn’t washed in years.

“Welcome to Meaty… Meats something. May I take your order?”

Kelly put her finger to her lips in what she hoped was a cute and innovative gesture. “I’ll have… oh, my… A small Veggie Salad and an Ice Tea.”

“Would you like some Meat with that?”

“Um… sure!”

The employee waved lethargically at the others behind her. Kelly tapped her manicured nails on the counter impatiently. One employee shoved his fat, sausaugey fingers into a bucket of browning lettuce leaves. He pulled out a handful and dropped them into a small plastic container, a few sticking to his sweaty palm. The salad moved to the next employee. A bony, gaunt girl slowly reached for a metal bucket of green vegetables and tremblingly picked up the ladle. The mulched compost splooched onto the lettuce, pieces flying every which way, splattering the girl’s arm. The salad was picked up by a moody teen covered in metal decorations, some of which leaked yellow pus and placed on a tray. The flies flew from the bloody meat packages, the sticky floor, employees faces, and descended upon the heap of decomposing food. A thin boy with man fuzz on his chin grabbed a cup from the garbage bin and placed it under the juice machine. He pulled the ice tea handle and the machine squealed in pain. Slowly, a thick, lumpy, dark grey ooze dropped into the cup. The ice tea landed on the same tray as the salad and a cloud of flies buzzed angrily at having their feast disturbed. The counter employee picked up the tray and dropped it unceremoniously on the greasy counter. The cup fell over but did not spill, the sludge oozing too slowly to make it in time. Kelly waited, her heels beginning to ache from her shoes.

The employee reached under the counter and brought up a large steak which she slammed onto the salad, sending browning leaves and orangey mulch everywhere. She righted the cup and dropped five hot dogs inside before pushing the tray over to Kelly.

“15.99… enjoy your Meaty Meat…whatever meal.”

Kelly dug into her pocket and pulled out twenty dollars. The employee handed her change and Kelly walked away with her meal. The restaurant was full of screaming babies, children throwing food, and tired adults with their own vials of “medicine”. Kelly saw a few empty tables near the bums and poor people. She took the table furthest away from the unwashed masses and took out her own knife and fork. She smashed the knife into the frozen steak and gritted her teeth against the backlash.

Drip…..drip…drip…

Kelly glanced up. “Do you mind? You’re drooling all over my table!”

The Hobo grinned dementedly, “No ‘m not.”

Kelly pointed to where his spit was being absorbed into the table, ‘Then what’s that?”

“’S my babies. All falling from my mouth. ‘Sorbed by the Meaty Meats Meat Corporation.”

“Listen, all I want is to eat my salad and ice tea in peace!”

“No peace in here. Here is bad. Here, they fire people. All because they throw up in the vegetable bucket. Bad, bad, bad.”

Kelly froze in the process of cutting her steak and glanced at her salad. She dropped her utensils and turned to her ice tea.

“Then… then they make him hobo! Me no hobo! Me… me Homeless Stranger With Bad Breath!”

Kelly turned to a cleaner employee passing by with a cart of dirty trays. “Um… excuse me but this… hobo is bothering me.”

The employee shrugged. “Whatcha want me to do about it? I’m only the tray gatherer.”

“Um…. Just get him away from me!”

But the employee had left. Furious, Kelly returned to trying to drink her ice tea. The hot dogs had been absorbed into the sludge and it was molassesy moving towards her mouth.

“Bad. Me use to work here. I was… I was the food-maker person. I good work. I work good.”

“Please leave me alone! I’m trying to eat!”

“Yup… yup… good… bad place. But they have not beaten old Bob! Oh no! Bob shall rise again and … take… something…”

Kelly growled and abruptly got up from the table and stomped over to the garbage bin where she dumped the remains of her salad and ice tea. She left in a huff, her long hair blowing out behind her. Bob still sat at the table, ranting about how he would rise to defeat the Meaty Meats Meat Corporation.

A sequined dress flew past the window.