TACO NIGHT
A very true story by Dave Caswell about Dave Caswell
White nothing. An enveloping brightness filled with searing hot pain. He always heard from people who had made this trip, this way, that it was always the same. No physical sensation beyond pure agony can prevail while you’re breaking the laws of physics. But once he was in the fold of time and space, there was no turning back. He had come too far.
After what seemed like an eternity midst the white nothing, there was suddenly an electric blue crackle tore a seems in the endless matte. A crevasse yawned open below somewhere and he knew he had finally arrived. With all his strength, he pushed his consciousness toward the opening. Once he was through, he could feel his body again. Specifically, he could feel it falling.
Pavement flew up to meet him. It hadn’t been a long fall, maybe five feet or so. He landed in a kneel and immediately looked up. Time was of the essence and he needed to move fast. He searched for his bearings but they were not hard to find. In giant glowing green letters above him, he saw the name of his destination. Whole Foods.
———————————-
Taco Night. Fuck yes. There are only few remedies for Dave Caswell to get over a long, shitty day and exquisite Mexican treats is one of those remedies.
The trick to keeping Taco Night special is to only have it once or twice a month. When his girlfriend, Angela, had sent him the simple text, Taco night? he had felt a particular roiling in his loins that only food fantasies can invoke. Off the train and right to Whole Foods he went. The purveyor of the finest and incredibly overpriced groceries was only about a quarter of a mile from his house so the price of convenience always outweighed the price of… well, price. Dave had practically skipped there like a school boy on his way home from the last day of school. Only this wasn’t the last day of school.
This. Was. Fucking. Taco. Night.
All was not kitten purs and bedazzled jean jackets however. There was a major decision to make. After living in a more cultured place than where he grew up, he had learned that there are two ways to do tacos. They can be either served on the crunchy, taco bell style shells or they can come on soft, white corn, traditional taco shells. This means prep for Taco Night is only spurred out of the gate by one decision. Soft or crunchy, which taco shell do you choose?
Dave was standing in front of the refrigerated display case over by the hot food bar (assuming you’ve been to Dave’s local Whole Food’s, you know where this is). Amidst the ‘fresh’ shredded mozzarella cheese and guacahummus (which is exactly what it sounds like) he rested his sights on a package of soft tortilla shells. But do I want crunchy tacos? They had been stale last time. Whole Foods, not carrying a huge choice of average grocery goods, didn’t typically have a huge variety of crunchy taco shells. There was only one, no-name taco brand and both times they had those, they were stale. Or was it only one time? Maybe it was just a bad batch?
And so he stood, locked deep in thought, people moving around him as he loomed in the center of the walking lane like a giant plaid shirt wearing parking cone. The soft tacos weren’t badly priced. $3.99 for a pack of twelve, which was a reasonable amount considering Angela would probably have two, leaving the other ten for him (Dave Caswell doesn’t play games on taco night. Ten taco minimum).
After a few moments of contemplation, his decision has been made. Montoyo brand soft taco shells had edged out the competition.
As he reached for the taco shells, he heard a commotion approaching. People were gasping at and rampantly moving away from a man who was charging down the aisle. Dave’s fingers had nearly touched the loose plastic packaging when he turned to look at the approaching calamity. The man emerged from the scattering crowd, and old man. Clad in a cracked, brown leather jacket, worn jeans, and a black t-shirt, he looked like he had just stepped out of an 1980′s portrayal of the future. He had white hair, scars on his face, and tattoo’s that ran down his neck that were most likely connected to the ones that extended past the cuff of his jacket and onto his right hand. In that hand, he clutched a huge, futuristic pistol.
He leveled the gun at Dave, and beyond it, beamed at him with a wild-eyed stare. “You!” he shouted.
The flood gates opened. People started running every which way, screaming and shouting. looking for their idiot kids who they should have paid attention to. However, amidst the chaos, the old man continued to walk toward Dave with that gun aimed right at his head. Dave, looked behind him, then back, and pointed at himself, mouthing the word, me?
“Yes, you. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”
Dave was beyond scared shitless. He was scared to a point where he was shit inept; unable to even produce shit, let alone be capable of being out of it. But this couldn’t possibly have stopped him from saying something stupid which on a negative traits scorecard – if there were such a thing – would have been the section in which he received the highest marks. So he raised his hands and smiled nervously.
“Umm, not particularly”.
“No. Of course not,” the old man said as he took another step forward. He pressed his future weapon on, using it to drive his point home. “It’s only the end of the world”.
Dave looked around as if to be checking to see if he was on candid camera. “End of the world? I’m shopping for taco shells, man.”
“And that’s all it takes. A pebble cast into the ocean of time. What starts as a ripple will eventually become a tsunami. I’ve done the research my friend. I’ve devoted my life to finding the event that sets off the powder keg. It all… comes back… to this.”
“Who the hell are you, dude?” Dave asked.
“You don’t recognize me? I suppose not. A couple of stints in prison and twilight years lived in a starving world will do that to you. Look at me! Look close!” He took one more step closer to Dave, lowering the pistol slightly. “It’s me! You!”
“Yu? You don’t look Chine…” he went wide-eyed. “Me?”
———————————-
Outside, there were two quick flashes like someone was taking a picture, and from seemingly nowhere, two more figures dropped on to the pavement. Black armored hinges and robotic joints squealed as they stood up from the crouch they had landed in. Kevlar from head to toe, swords on the back, pistols on the thigh, and smooth glass face masks made the two future ninjas match on other perfectly. The parking lot was chaos with people trying to escape the Whole Foods and the tyranny of the gunman inside. The Kevlar outfitted riot ninjas paid no attention to the panicked masses who in turn paid no attention to them. Their mission was a simple. Destroy Dave Caswell… old and young.
———————————-
“Yeah, from the future”. old Dave said. “What you are about to do sets off a chain reaction that will lead to the end of the world as humanity knows it. I’ve spent the back half of my life… our life… trying to figure out where it went wrong. It all comes down to this.”
There was a thunderous crash toward the front of the store. Future Dave whirled around, aiming his gun toward the source of the sound. He gritted his teeth and tensed up. “They’re here,” he growled.
One of the armored Ninjas leaped over the coffee bar and landed perfectly on a display case filled with delicious gelato. The smooth, tinted glass helmet that covered its face revealed nothing. No matter how dark the glass was, Dave and Dave could both feel the eyes beyond it locked on to them. The Ninja’s hand went first to the hilt of the sword strapped across it’s back, then it second guessed, and the hand fell to the grip of its gun.
Old Dave didn’t take time to second guess . Rock and roll o’clock is a small time-table, so he ripped on the trigger of that future gun without hesitation. Each shot sounded like thunder inside of an elevator with sound proofing on the interior walls. The shots made the air grow close and expand, like the gun was sucking energy in and then expelling it all back out when it fired. A display rack filled with bags of coffee next to the ninja exploded. Coffee beans were instantly turned to coffee grounds, no grinder necessary. The ninja tried to move but Old Dave was too fast. It’s breast-plate exploded into a shower of sparks and smoke and it careened backward over the coffee bar from where it came.
The store fell silent for a moment. Young Dave’s stomach rumbled. Would Taco Night still be on after this? Old Dave scanned the area with his gun for another moment before letting his aim go slack.
“I thought they would send mo…” he was barely to spit out before the second ninja fell on him from the ceiling. It knocked the gun from his hand with ease. Old Dave, moving remarkably quick, tried to swing at the ninja with his other hand but it was no use. The riot ninja moved with break neck speed, twisted his arm back, and delivered a full force front kick to Old Dave’s chest. The old man flew into a stacked pyramid of boxes of tea.
Dave watched the old man laying motionless for a second and then looked back to the riot ninja. Was this good or bad? It drew the sword from it’s back and spun it in front of him in an entirely unnecessary manner. Definitely bad!
“David Caswell of 2013, you have been selected for deletion. How do you plead?” it asked in a robotic crackle
“Like hell?” he asked weakly.
“By the power vested in this unit by the Montoyo Global Corporation, you are hereby sentenced to death.”
It raised the sword and Dave saw his whole life flash before his eyes. It was a brief glimpse of a bunch of movies he didn’t want to watch because he had seen them recently. Then, there were some video game screen shots of Sonic The Hedgehog. Overall, pretty depressing. When the quick flash was over and he had accepted his fate, fear was mixed with a humongous shot of disappointment. Then, he saw a blur move out of his peripheral vision and slam into the ninja. It stumbled back, reaching for its holster but it came back with nothing.
The blur was old Dave, who possessed the ability to move faster (blur speed status at least) than young Dave. This is probably because old Dave came from a time when good couches didn’t exist anymore. And goddamnit… did young Dave love a good couch
Old Dave had the ninja’s gun out of its holster and drawn, all fury and no remorse He gave a smile and wink before letting er’ rip. The riot ninja’s face plate exploded into shards, whirling it around on its heels. It whipped back to look at them and young Dave really wished it hadn’t. It was a sight he would never forget.
Green fluid spilled from the cracked edges of the glass face shield. Beyond it was the wide-eyed face of a corpse, so rotted that it was mostly skeleton. It’s wide, milky eyes darted back and forth wildly. It’s huge, skeletal grin opened and it let out a long scream,
Old Dave silenced the scream with one last shot. The skeletal head exploded inside the semi broken helmet and the bionic, ninja zombie flopped to the floor.
“Recycles. Part zombie. Part cyborg. Aaaall Ninja. Real pains in the ass if you ask me,” old Dave said before slumping into the side wall of the cooler. He produced a pack of smokes from somewhere inside his jacket, plugged one it into his cracked lips, and let it off the red-hot barrel of the gun before dropping it to the ground. “Whatever you do, at least quit these damn things.”
“Montoyo Global Corporation?” Dave pointed back to the Montoyo brand soft shell tacos. “I think we’ll be having crunchy tacos for dinner tonight.”
Old Dave gave him a tired smile and a nod. “Good choice.”
The store was empty now. No hipsters, green freaks, or rich white housewives hindered their short trip to the ethnic food aisle. Old Dave stumbled around like a drunk, clutching at his rib cage. Young Dave tried to help every once and awhile but old Dave would shove him and utter a loving, “Get the fuck off me,” or something of the like. He seemed like a really warm person.
Finally, they were at the Tex-Mex section. Up on the top shelf, sat the key to a brighter future as far as old Dave was concerned. A red box of off brand taco shells. Young Dave looked at his older self, who just gave him a stern nod. “Here’s to a better future,” young Dave said as he reached up and grabbed the red box. When he looked back to old Dave, it looked like the sun was shining down on him. The old man was looking up toward the source of the light, a smile creeping across his face. He became transfixed.
To young Dave’s amazement (because everything he had seen up to this point was only slightly out of the ordinary) the old version of himself began to change. His features became softer, his neck tattoos shrank away, and his clothes turned into the more modest attire of a man in his mid sixties. Old Dave’s smile turned into an elated chuckle.
“Dad!”
They both turned to look at another figure in the aisle with them. He was ghostly at first but came more into focus as he approached them. The guy looked a lot like Dave but a little older, more handsome, and less fat. “Hey Dad, we’re up. You taught us this goddamn game, time to show us why they call you ‘The Legend’,” he said.
“I’ll be right there, son,” Old Dave replied. The ghostly apparition of Dave Jr. nodded and ran back off into invisibility.
Young Dave, being really uncomfortable with this whole situation, only had one thing to say. “Don’t call your son, ‘son’. It sounds stupid when fathers say it in movies, it sounds stupid when you say it, and I don’t like sounding stupid.” It came out a little rougher than he would have liked. Old Dave barely seemed to notice though. He turned and started to walk away, beginning to disappear just like the ghost son had. The future’s history had begun re-writing itself.
As he became more transparent, the light that was shining on him got even brighter. Soon the store was lit like it was under a giant microscope. Then, the light filled Dave’s vision. He put his hands up to cover his eyes but it didn’t matter because…
———————————-
“Excuse me,” a girl in along, sloppy dress said as she skulked past him in the ethnic food aisle. Dave winced a little as a quick pain shot through his head. He hated it when that happened. It was his fear that he would drop dead of an embolism when those weird head pains happened. The momentary headache subsided and remembered what he was doing. Taco Night.
He reached up and grabbed the red box of off brand, crunchy, taco shells. Boom. Let’s get this party started. He made his way to the front to cash out when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. It was his girlfriend, to whom he referred to affectionately as “Ladybot” or just “Bot”.
“What’s up, Bot?”
“Hey, baby. Did you go to the store?”
“Yeah, just ran down to Whole Foods to get taco stuff.”
“Awesome. Can you do me a favor and get the soft tacos? The crunchy ones were weird and stale the last couple times we got them at Whole Foods.”
“I was going to grab crunchy… but yeah, soft tacos. Whatever works.”
“Is that okay with you?”
“It’s just soft tacos. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”
END
