Saturday, May 18, 2013

Quizno's Subs Burns Down.

I once worked at a Quizno's in Fargo, ND. And one day, a co-worker of mine called me up, and told me that I wouldn't need to go to work that day. I asked her why? and she told me it had burned down during the night. I will have to tell the story of that on another day, as it was quite a story.
But I just came across the poem I wrote about it. It is quite a awful experience seeing with your eyes the place you worked out burned to the ground. Here is my poem.

There will be no more walking through the front door.
The front door is broken.
The glass is strewn across the sidewalk.
I would like to take that red chair,
the one sticking out the burned out front window,
and sit on it for a while.
I would like to sit there and think about all the good times,
all the stressful times, motivational times,
that I spent there in that store.
The back door is still standing
I would like to enter through the back door
just one more time,
I still have a key for it,
Shall I see if it still works?
Oh, but wait.
The back door only opens into a big gaping hole,
a big gaping hole now filled with the bricks from the top floor,
and burnt debris.
Where is the upstairs?
Where is the downstairs?
Hello, I am suppose to work today.
Could you please tell me where the kitchen is?
Don't tell me it's gone,
Our kitchen, our cooler, our freezer,
All our food,
The bread, the soup, the meats and cheeses.
The desk.
I just organized it on Saturday.
The sink.
Our 8 quarts, 4 quarts, metal pans and metal lids.
Our till and all the money we made on Saturday.
The pop machine, counter, and make tables.
The oven,
The soup kettles, hot tables, and salad cooler.
Our green and red lobby table and chairs.
Our cute little dressing bottles all neatly labeled,
All of this melting, all burning, crumbling, caving in,
Holding on, some not,
some exploding.
All of it finally giving way after a hard fight,
having turned black,
turning to ashes,
falling down, falling down,
into nothing, but black upon black.
I want to take back that blackened night,
When the hot, bright light of fire took away the life of our store.
I want to go back to a night when the store stood fully intact,
waiting patiently for us all to come to work the following day,
waiting for us to turn on the lights,
and bring life into it for the day.
If I only I could walk through the front doors one more time,
just to say goodbye.

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