ANGELS FOR BREAKFAST

‘Next!’
‘Could I please have four Big Mac meals, two MacChicken Barbies and three Super MacBrekies?’
‘Cokes or Pepsi?’
‘Emmm, I’m not really sure, I wonder what …..
‘Stand aside until you’ve made your mind up!’
‘Order up, No 16. Next!’
Embarrassed I turned quickly and clattered into the giant of a man behind me.
I had noticed him as I waited in the queue. Most likely he was a club bouncer coming off night shift. He was squat, built like a tank. His hair had been shaved to a mere hint of bristle. He wore a tight black suit which fitted like clingfilm over his bulging pecs. A black tie laced his black shirt. Dangerous looking steel-tipped black Doc Martins completed his colour coordinated outfit.
‘You stupid arsehole!’
‘Please there’s no reason to speak to me like that, it was an accident!’
With unbelievable speed he twisted both my arms and jammed them in a hammerlock against my collar bones. He shoved and I collapsed onto the greasy vinyl floor tiles.
‘No, not again!’
My chest spasmed into the familiar agonising pain. It lanced through my ribs and down my side. I hunched over, clutching my torso. I have never really understood why this happens so often at times of physical or mental stress. The Doctors just refer vaguely to post surgical nerve pain, but it can be so intense that I am often terrified that it might be peritonitis again.
The Doc Martins shoved me aside contemptuously and I heard the thug give his order. As the pain started to subside I pulled myself into a huddled crouch and looked around me. No-one was taking the faintest notice nor were even glancing at me. The bored young men and women in skip hats mechanically went about their robotic routines, crying out order numbers, then,
‘ Order up, No 23. Next.’
The queue moved steadily forward. At the square tables, construction workers chatted over their cholesterol awakenings. Teenage single mums, gross with puppy fat displayed at their waists like flesh belts, jammed Macfries into the dribbling mouths of toddlers in push chairs. Pimpled youths in hoodies, slurped from buckets of Coke. The manager, an acned, sallow youth, stepped from serving to where I lay.
You cannot lie here, you’re blocking the ordering area. Either order or leave.’
He added ‘Please’ as an afterthought.

I thought of nothing but this total negation of myself, my values and this insulting dismissal. How I regretted promising Cora and her fellow medical students any breakfast of their choice after their graduation party the previous night.
I dreampt - of arson, just one match into the sizzling fat, and inferno!
- of hiring a massive bulldozer, ramming the flimsy shack and crushing the Golden Arches to smithereens.
- of slowly, inch by inch, lowering the black suited bully into a vat of boiling cooking oil.
Then I saw with crystal clarity how to wreak satisfying hell without listening to a cell door clanging for the rest of my life.
One of the many skills I had learnt and mastered since my retirement was cooking. I was particularly famed for my extensive range of curries. But one time, when I was prepping a range of accompanying side dishes, I made the mistake of rubbing my knuckles against an itchy eye, not realising that they were dusted with hot chilli powder.
Have you ever done that? Believe me, the pain is excruciating.
I swilled handfuls of cold water into my eyes while screaming like a banshee. It was over an hour before the searing, burning agony started to dissipate.

‘What the heck are you doing Grandpops?’
I turned, Cora was looking curiously at the array of small containers I was carefully filling with a mix of Chilli powder, and ground black pepper. I grinned sheepishly at my much loved Granddaughter, then gawked at her appearance.
She was, as usual, a walking laundry bag of un-ironed, ill-assorted fashion. One leg was encased in purple legging, the other in striped yellow and blue. The slinky micro-skirt was shining green and some sort of pale orange poncho hung down below the red scarf drooped around her neck. The long, ash-blonde hair I had admired since her birth was now severely cropped and highlighted with green and purple streaks.
‘Is that really what Doctors are going to look like in future Cora?’
‘Like it Pops? Cool Eh? But hey, what the heck is that you’re making?’
‘Angels.’
‘Angels?’
‘Yes, Angels of vengeance.’
‘Grandpops you’re really getting weirder, Its about time you sought help!’ See you.’
She sauntered off.

It was four days before he turned up again. I raised myself from the lowered driver’s seat and watched the black-clad figure enter MacDonalds. Picking up my small knapsack I followed him in. Same queue. Same slobs. Same bored staff.
I moved to the side of the counter and placed my knapsack on the formica table near which I had noticed the booster air con fan. I assumed this was only used when the grease-laden atmosphere got a bit too sticky to breathe. Carefully I opened the containers and placed them at the outlet. With one hand I took out the World War 2 gasmask while turning on the air blow switch to maximum with the other. I then yelled at the top of my voice.
‘Order up! Angels for breakfast!’ and donned the gas mask.
Now I had their attention! Some started screaming, some ran towards the exit but too late, the coughing started. As I turned to leave, the door behind me opened and to my horror in stepped Cora.
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