Marcel Winatschek

The Cheeseburgers Arrived Too Late

He was sitting in a crumbling doorway in a dark suit, hair slicked back, and when we walked past he started talking. Something about not having eaten in days, his hands moving in slow motion to illustrate the point. We ran the standard response—students, sorry, not much to spare ourselves—which we delivered with a straight face, despite being literally on our way to McDonald’s.

Standing at the counter with the menu lit up overhead, the guilt arrived exactly on schedule. I looked at Mona. She looked back with the precise expression I deserved. I counted the change in my hand. "And two cheeseburgers," I told the cashier.

When we came back to the doorway he was gone. We stood there for a minute with a paper bag going warm in my hand, feeling like complete idiots. The gesture was real. The timing was just completely, irreversibly wrong.