The rising sun brought dew to the few extant blades of grass and sundry weeds of the back alleys of downtown Canterville. The leaves’ stomata did their best to suck up the welcome water before it all evaporated in the light and heat. Well, what light could make it to the alleys. Better than groundwater contaminated with any and all of what had landed on the surrounding asphalt and concrete the previous day.
This was the time of year where the days may have been pleasantly warm, but nights and mornings were still uncomfortably cold to be out in for hours at a time.
Sonata Dusk had been wandering the alleys since shortly before sunrise, having been forcibly evicted from the combined shop/townhouse on Radio Row whose attic she had made into a passable home. The space had a new legal occupant: a nerdy CHS student who had issues regarding women, to put it mildly. Had he had the guts to touch her, he would have literally thrown her out. Instead he spat like a cat in between his voluminous complaints about the fairer sex until she left.
She sighed as she sat on a crumbling concrete stair.
“I’m not that ugly, am I?” she asked a random rat, who hissed in response.
Sonata buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Her butt-length blue streaked hair, out of its scrunchie, draped over her body like a blanket. This was lucky for her as it also covered some of the ever-growing holes and tears in her purple shirt. While she had washed it in the river along with her other clothes, nothing lasts forever except possibly the collective dread, conscious or subconscious, of the end of existence.
She shook her head and, standing up, staggered further down the alley. Upon reaching its east exit onto Friendship Avenue, she came face to face with a delivery lorry-truck. Although she technically had room to jump out of the way, Sonata’s instinct was to run as if she were an ethically compromised archaeologist being chased by an unrealistically spherical giant boulder.
Even though the truck stopped at a service door just a few yards in, Sonata kept running until reaching the west end of the alley at Hope Street. She let out a pent-up sigh as she prepared to step onto the sidewalk. Then she noticed a man laying propped up against the building to her left. ‘Scruffy’ would be too kind a word to describe him; so would ‘clean’. He slowly lifted his head, opening his eyes of mismatched size to better see Sonata with. When he began to speak, Sonata noticed he only had about three teeth, plus the smell coming out of that orifice was so substantial and rank that it was almost visible.
“Heh-heh,” the man chuckled before launching into a minute-long coughing fit. “It’sh been a long time shinsh a girl’sh gotten thish closhe to me.”
He reached out a craggy shaky hand toward Sonata, who instinctively backed away.
“Oh, come on!” he said. “If y’ain’t gonna give me a good time, at leasht give me shom Buksh for my fixsh.”
Sonata shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t have any,” she said. “I got kicked out of the place I was living. It was kinda the worst!”
“Usheless,” the homeless man griped as he began to sweat profusely. “An angel fallsh into my lap and she turnsh out ta be a bum jusht as bad off. Why doesh thish alwaysh happen to m—”
The man’s eyes suddenly went wide as he clutched his chest and flopped onto his side into a conveniently but precariously placed pile of soft things, which then toppled over on top of him. Sonata carefully approached.
“A-are you okay?” she asked.
He did not move.
Sonata’s eyes quickly darted around in hopes no one could see her. Once she was satisfied that was the case, she slowly walked east back into the alley, away from the prone man, arms locked behind her back, attempting to whistle but failing.
As she reached the spot where the lorry had parked, Sonata found a small man carrying several boxes into the back door. Although his face was obscured by his burden, she thought she recognized him from the not too distant past. Seeing him struggling, she called out to him.
“Hey! Uh, do you need, like, some help?”
The man responded in a strained voice, “Get the boxes of meat the delivery guy throws at you and follow me into the back.”
Sonata strolled casually to the side truck and immediately came face to face with five boxes of near-frozen meat tossed into her arms. She grunted from the weight, but carried them into the building anyway, hoping the whole time she would not trip and spill them as she turned several corners while walking on just-mopped tile.
Once Sonata had placed the boxes into a walk-in refrigerator, she managed to get a good look at where she was and who she had been talking to.
She was, once again, inside the kitchen of Big Beulah’s Burrito Barn and was, once again, face to face with the weedy little grey man of thinning dark hair who had safely spirited her out of there weeks earlier. When their eyes met, both jumped back an inch as they said “You!” in unison.
After an awkward minute or so in which they stood facing each other in total silence, during which a dog could be heard barking somewhere off in the distance, Sonata decided to break the ice.
“Uh, hi!” she said with a big, half-fake smile. “It’s, um, been a while.”
“Mm-hmm,” the man grunted with a frown. He was shorter than Sonata, especially considering she still wore her now-scuffed boots that gave her an extra two inches, yet she felt he towered over her.
The man looked her up and down, not unlike a butcher looking over a carcass in preparation for cutting it. Sonata’s smile grew wider as her pupils shrank and sweat beaded on her forehead as he approached her and placed his hand on her shoulder, causing her to twitch.
“I’m sorry I snuck into the back of your place again. It wasn’t the smell of good food this time. Not that your food isn’t good! I mean, you don’t make tacos but the spices are close enough and that’s fine by me!” Sonata babbled.
“Actually we do make tacos. Sort of,” replied the man with a shrug. “Taco Bowls.”
“Well,” Sonata said, “That’s not really the same thing, is it. You can’t hold a taco-bowl in your hand. Um, where are you taking me, Mister…?” she trailed off as she found herself slowly being led through the empty kitchen.
“Call me ‘Short Plate’,” said Short Plate. “Henpecked husband of the one and only Big Beulah. And in case you’re wondering, I’m taking you to a shower because, well, you look and smell like you haven’t had one in weeks and your clothes are literally unravelling off your body.”
“You’re not wrong there, Mister Short Pl— Hey wait!” Sonata stopped to exclaim. “Since when does a burrito restaurant have a shower?”
Short Plate smiled, a mixture of pride and sadness. “I own this building and used to run a meat-cutting shop here: ‘Short Plate’s Charcuterie’. There’s an entire room usually locked off even to staff where I once cut carcasses. It’s tiled and has a drain plus a long spray hose. Very effective place for a shower and even a good night’s sleep if your snoring wife lost her temper and kicked you out again.”
He unlocked the heavy metal door, which creaked in protest at being opened for the first time in weeks. “You can clean yourself off in there. Everything you’ll need is already in there… because I need it too.”
“Thank you so much!” Sonata gushed. “Uh… is this legal?”
“Eh,” Short Plate replied with a noncommittal swish of his arm. “It was all sterilized when my meat shop closed. I’m not a total idiot no matter what my wife says. I do my best to keep the Barn up to code. Even if Beulah complains, she can’t really do much except throw me out, and then I’ll just live here. Anyway, when you’re through, knock on the door and I’ll hand you some clean clothes.”
Sonata nodded and stepped through the threshold into the former butchery room.
She found herself in a medium-sized squarish room – not quite a cube; the ceiling was too low – with a long steel sink along one wall, a hose complete with spray nozzle attached near its middle. Metal racks were still attached to the ceiling in between the lights, although only two meat hooks remained; one held a towel, the other a bucket full of toiletries including an unopened toothbrush. The walls were white and almost unnaturally smooth. So was the grey floor, which sloped gently down in all directions to a large slotted drain in the exact middle. Near the drain on the side closest to the hose sat a white plastic sitting stool and a blue bucket with a sponge inside. As she stripped off her tattered clothes, Sonata noticed along the wall opposite the sink a cot complete with multiple layers of blankets.
That was the moment she realized just how cold the room was – it had been used to store meat after all. She grabbed herself as she shivered, quickly making her way to the sink to turn on the water.
“Please don’t be cold,” she begged of the water. However, even on a boiler system, water takes time to warm up. She flinched when the cold water hit her; she yelped in pain when its temperature suddenly ratcheted up to scalding. It took her a minute or two to find a happy medium. Once she did, she grabbed a sponge, soap, and shampoo out of the meathook bucket, sprayed some water on the stool, and sat down. As she held the sprayer over her head for a moment not unlike a waterfall and allowed the warm water to run down her naked form, she pondered.
Ahhh. This is nice. This water makes me feel alive again. Wait. Does that mean I wasn’t alive before? I don’t think I’m a ghost. Pretty sure my sisters would have told me something like that. Or maybe not. By the end they didn’t really like me much.
Not that I can blame them. All we cared about was power and not caring who we stepped on to get it. I didn’t step on anyone. Except for all those bugs. Dagi doesn’t like bugs. Aria tried to put one in my glass of cola and make me drink it. She does stuff like that when she gets mad. Which is a lot. I wish I got along better with her. She said I’m the worst. I don’t think I’m the worst.
Honestly, I’m not sure this world is the worst anymore. We’ve been here for almost eleven years and I think I’ve finally become used to this body. It does stink that I don’t have my gills to breathe underwater. Or our frills. Dagi had the nicest neck frills of any Siren. Here though we have totally different body types. They call me ‘top-heavy’ – these mammalian teats do weigh a lot… heh, they go boing in my hands – but Dagi has amazing hips and Aria has nice toned legs. Both are better for dancing than what I got. Even with the gem I was never the best singer.
Why is this man being so nice to me? Dagi would think he’s up to something, but I don’t think he is. Short Plate seems like a good person. He got me out of the kitchen last time I came in. Now he’s letting me take a real shower for the first time in weeks. That old house I was sleeping in didn’t have plumbing in the attic and I couldn’t get down to the full bathroom – just to the powder room for water.
The floor is so smooth. It feels funny on my feet. But I guess that makes sense because no one wants blood to stay on the floor. That happened on our rock when we *ahem* said hi to those pirate ponies. We had to wait for a big storm to clean off all of that gunk. It was the worst. Maybe the only time Aria and I agreed.
It’s actually kind of nice that with this body I can eat whatever I want. Of course feeding off negative energy was nice, but, y’know, food works too. I can stay alive on food and not need to make people mad at each other at all.
I wonder if Sunset is still mad at me for eating her burrito? I was kind of starving, so I hope she’ll understand. I feel bad I still don’t have the money to pay her back for that. Actually, I haven’t seen her in a long time. Can’t even apologize. Does she likes tacos or burritos more? Maybe Mister Short Plate can tell me?
Wow, I really was dirty. It’s like my skin is changing colour as the gunk washes off my body down the drain. Having a shampoo to do my hair is a plus. I wish I had a way to better take care of the things I need to take care of. I miss the days where I could just sing and get people to do what I wanted. Now I have to work at it.
It’s hard. Hard like a taco shell. Easy to crack. Am I easy to crack? I guess so. I’m sure Dagi and Aria are better off than I am. They don’t have to look to the kindness of strangers. Or, I guess, sort of strangers since I did technically meet Mister Short Plate a couple months ago. Hmm. This is a nice room with its own bed and shower and everything. I wonder if he would let me live here if I promised to work for him. But what could I do?
Back when me and my sisters lived together, I’d do the cooking because Dagi was too busy and Aria didn’t want to, so I know a few things about a kitchen. I could take food to people at tables maybe? I could clean, since my sisters made me do that too. Come to think of it, I did most of the chores around the house. I miss that place. We could have stayed there forever if Dagi had used her powers to get us more money instead of just conning the place, so once we lost our gems the bank came knocking and threw us out.
I hope this room is soundproof, because I’m trying to sing and it sounds terrible. Really the worst. I miss singing so much. But I guess there are other things in this world to do. Taking a page from Sunset and her gang and start making friends might be a good idea. Aria would call me stupid. But then she’d say that anyway.
Rinse the shampoo out of my hair and the last of the soap off of my body. Get the undersides of my feet because, well, my socks had basically worn through so the insides of my boots stained me. I need new clothes. Did Mister Short Plate say he’d have some for me? That’s so nice of him!
Woah! Nearly slipped on the floor there. Turn off the water. Now I’m cold again. Like that one hard winter on the rock where we nearly starved. Wrap myself in this towel. Heh-heh. I look and feel like a burrito. A white flour tortilla with Sonata blue filling. I wonder what I would taste like. Would I be worth eating? Do I go better with guacamole or queso or fire sauce? Sour cream. Gotta have sour cream. If I’m gonna be eaten, sour cream is a must. I don’t want to be eaten; I’m just saying.
Who am I even talking to? Am I just having a teenage nervous breakdown? I’m not really a teenager anymore, but I’m certainly not centuries old either. I’m just a normal ex-Siren in her early-20s. I think. I know how much time has passed since we came to this world. But I have no idea how long we were stuck in Starswirl’s mirror in the middle of nothing – it was just… empty and kind of brown and stuffy and I remember being so scared as I closed my eyes. There was no air, no anything. Then after what felt like a few minutes, but it could have been years or even more, we got spit out here with these weird soft squishy bodies.
Do burritos think about their past? Does the steak think “I used to be a cow!”?
I’m so hungry.
Even if they don’t want to be around me anymore, I hope Dagi and Aria are okay.
After placing the hose back in its spot and generally tidying up the area she’d used out of habit, she made sure her towel was secured around her body and then knocked on the metal door. A moment later it opened, first slowly, then more quickly as Short Plate saw Sonata was reasonably decent. He carried in his hands a set of cleaned clothes – black shirt, black pants, black shoes, black scrunchie and hairnet, and… bizarrely… a black brassiere and panty set.
“Here,” he said. “Try these on.”
Sonata’s immediate reaction was to smile, but then the inquisitive part of her brain began to slowly rumble to life and her face quickly sported a look of confusion.
“Uh, I hate to look a gift pony in the mouth, but, why do you have girls’ clothes?”
Short Plate sighed. “They belong – used to belong – to my daughter, Patty. This was her uniform. She used to help us here, but then… well… she and Beulah never saw eye to eye. You know the old saying that daughters turn into their mothers? Well, she decided to move as far away as possible to keep that from happening. With my luck and hers, it probably happened anyway. These might be a little big for you, as Patty was never lithe to begin with and had started putting on weight when she left, but hopefully it will be fine for now.”
Sonata took the clothes with a soft smile. “You’re a really nice guy, Mister Short Plate. I wish my sisters had been as nice, then maybe we’d still be together. So, uh, for doing this, what do you want me to do for you? Dagi told me there’s no such thing as a free lunch… well, except for that time I was starving and ate Sunset’s burrito… but you don’t need to know that!”
Short Plate shrugged. “Normally, I wouldn’t ask anything in return. However, we lost most of our employees after the Orangeglow incident.”
“What’s that?” Sonata asked, her head cocked not unlike a dog’s.
“A popular yet polarizing politician died here a few weeks ago while talking to a reporter. Even though his death was ruled to be natural causes, it’s still a black mark on this place. Orangeglow was set to become the Governor of this whole area, but obviously not now. I’m neutral on him – he didn’t speak to us when he came in – but Beulah loved him. Our workers who hated him quit in protest because Beulah wanted to build a shrine to him in the back room. So, today I only have one employee coming in: Dashiki, who hated Orangeglow more than anyone but has been here long enough to have dealt with crazier ideas from my wife. He could use some help,” Short Plate said, his head bowed. “Will you? I’ll pay you for your time.”
Sonata’s eyes widened. “For realzies? Ah! Sure! Just… be right back!” she sputtered as she went back into the former cutting room to change.
When Sonata came out, she was wearing the Burrito Barn uniform, albeit with some alterations. The black trousers were a couple inches short on her but too large in the waist, so she had fashioned a makeshift belt out of the remnants of her skirt. The pink stood out like a beacon. Meanwhile, the black shirt was a size or to too big for Sonata, so she simply tied it at the bottom, which resulted in showing off a small portion of her midriff and utterly fail to hide her upper-body assets. Short Plate coughed as he pointedly looked away from her.
“Anyway,” he said, focused on a crack in the ceiling, “Have you ever worked a register before?”
Sonata shook her head. “No.”
“Hmm,” Short Plate hmm’d. “Then, have you ever worked in a kitchen?”
“Well, kind of,” said Sonata with a sad frown, “My sisters were, well, lazy or busy all the time and made me do all the work. I don’t know if they ever appreciated it.”
Short Plate nodded. “Good enough. I’ll put you to work prepping the ground beef and salsa. Then at lunch time you can be our indoor delivery girl.”
At that point, a tall man with tan skin, blue eyes, prematurely greying hair, and dreadlocks covered by a knitted cap of black, red, and green, sauntered into the kitchen.
“Morning, Mister Plate,” he said with pleasant formality before noticing the girl standing nearby. “What the? New worker bee? Where did you pick up this one? The playground?”
Short Plate rolled his eyes. “That’s a fine introduction, Dashiki.”
“Actually, he didn’t find me on the playground at all; I came in from the alley!” Sonata said.
Both men facepalmed.
As the Burrito Barn quickly filled up for the lunch hour, Sonata stood in the back in front of the giant pot of salsa, stirring it as visions of tacos and fireflies danced in her head – the former she could explain; the latter she could not. Due to her distraction, she stirred the pot a little too vigorously, allowing a small amount to plop out onto her arm. Absentmindedly, she licked it off, then went rigid in shock.
“Seriously?” she asked herself aloud. “What is this weaksauce?” She looked around and, finding everyone else distracted, decreed to the salsa, “I’ll fix you. Once I’ve worked my magic, everyone will be talking about how great the Barn’s salsa is! Hold on just one second!”
Sonata darted around the kitchen, picking up every bottle of spices and hot sauce she could find, along with a couple of small orange peppers. She dumped all of it into the salsa in varying amounts and stirred it around for a few minutes before allowing herself a taste – with a different spoon to avoid contamination of course.
“Ahhh…” she said with a smile. “Much better.”
“Hey, new girl!” Dashiki called to Sonata. “That salsa ready? We’re running out on the line!”
“Coming!” Sonata replied, bringing the pot to him along with a ladle. She carefully set the pot on a stool near the counter-top so Dashiki could refill the salsa tray.
“Thanks,” he said as he scooped. “Now, see that press? There’s a quesadilla in there that’s gonna be done in about a minute. You need to take it and that wrapped burrito to the young yuppie-looking couple over at Table Twenty-two.”
“The bottle-blonde and the shyster looking guy?” Sonata asked.
Dashiki nodded. “That’s them,” he said with a sigh. “Why is it that the richer they are, the ruder they are… and less likely they are to tip?”
“It’s just a thing,” said Sonata. “I used to be just like them when I had money.”
Dashiki looked surprised. “I’d never have guessed. You’ve been nothing but helpful even though it’s your first day on the job.”
“I try my best,” Sonata replied with a wan smile.
Dashiki gave a half-smirk, “The best you can do is the best you can do; that’s my motto. Could I do better than this place? Yeah. But this is a fine job. My fiancée works IT at the fancy Academy. Besides, S.P. deserves some help beyond Beulah. She hasn’t come in yet today… unusual… but you know she can be… abrasive.”
The double-sided press beeped. Sonata practically jumped, making Dashiki laugh.
“That’s that quesadilla, right?” asked Sonata already knowing. “I’ll get it!”
Using a large spatula, she scooped the piping-hot quesadilla out of the machine and onto a circular metal plate, whereupon she picked up a nearby pizza cutter to slice it into four pieces. Then, she moved it to a biodegradable oblong plate and, after filling a small cup with salsa and taking a bag of tortilla chips, headed to the table with the yuppie couple – the woman was very light orange; the man was grey with curly hair, a large nose, and glasses – and placed it down between them.
“Hi!” Sonata chirped. “Here’s your quesadilla and burrito! Enjoy!”
The man gave her a dismissive look and replied in an affected accent, “Yeah, well don’t let it take so long next time. Me and Corona here we gots places to be.”
“Why did we even come to this place, Geltbergstein?” Corona asked. You know this is where Daddy died.
“Because,” Geltbergstein said, my father used to take me here as a kid to get Køsha meats, and then kept coming even after it turned into a low-scale restaurant. I’m sure once he’s out of jail he’ll be back. Especially if my plan to buy up this side of the street and redevelop it into something a lot more upscale works out.”
“Fine,” Corona said with a pout.
Sonata cleared her throat, causing both of them to glare at her. “Sorry,” she said, “But I just wanted to remind you to eat your food before it gets cold. I even gave you some salsa on the side!”
“Yeah thanks,” said Geltbergstein without looking up. “Just get back to work, girl.”
“Oh! You’re right!” said Sonata. “Bye!”
Sonata slipped back behind the counter to find Dashiki giving her a look.
“You’re better off not talking to their kind,” he said.
“Maybe,” replied Sonata, “But the guy said he wants to buy this place and turn it into a… fancy place? And the woman’s dad died? You learn a lot by listening.”
Dashiki chuckled. “Every two-bit developer in this city has had dreams of ‘sprucing up’ this stretch of Third Street for years, bulldoze the beating heart of Downtown's food district and gentrify it for the nouveau riche out west. It doesn’t matter what Beulah says; Short Plate’ll never sell. I’ve worked here for long enough to know h—”
Their conversation was interrupted by Goldbergstein leaping out of his chair while screaming at the top of his lungs and running around the room, not unlike the time, Sonata recalled silently, when she and her sisters set that patrol officer on fire. Goldbergstein, eyes watering behind his fogged-up glasses, fumbled around the place begging for water until finally reaching the iced tea dispenser and proceeding to drink the entire thing. Not all of it made it into his mouth as a large puddle of tea formed around him, soaking the shoulder of his fancy grey suit.
“Strange,” Dashiki said. “He didn’t order anything spicy on that quesadilla.”
Sonata’s eyes went wide as she gulped. “It’s the salsa, isn’t it? I knew I used too much little orange peppers!”
“Orange p— Those are habeneros, Sonata,” explained Dashiki. “They’re very hot.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
A few moments later, Short Plate approached the two of them.
“Do I even want to know why Orangeglow’s oldest daughter just threatened me with decapitation and her husband was covered in sweet tea and crying with his tongue sticking out?” he asked. “It’s a good thing my wife, for all her faults, is good at smoothing over situations like this. Now… answers?”
Dashiki moved slightly to the point he was in between Short Plate and Sonata. He stared at Beulah consoling the couple, then back to look Short Plate directly in the eye as he spoke.
“What?”
Author's Note
Thanks for reading this prequel. Even if you weren't curious about how Sonata got her job at the Burrito Barn, I was.
Click me!
