Charlie of the Great Celestial Chorus snapped his fingers and brought me to a small parking lot area. In front of me was a small, white food truck. The truck was parked in the middle of the modest lot. I couldn’t see anything past the sidewalk surrounding the lot. It was obstructed by the strange, gray foggy substance. I was already getting pretty tired of the stuff.

“Welcome to your new home, Chef Boy!” Charlie said animatedly.

“That’s gonna be a never say that again from me, chief,” I slapped back.

Charlie threw the book at me in both a metaphorical and an actual sense. He summoned a large tome, tossed it straight at my head, and recalled it to his hand. I ducked out of the way, thinking the monstrosity could kill me if I wasn’t already dead.

“Article sixty-one, section two, sub-section six states that all restaurateurs working within Purgatory shall henceforth be referred to as Chef Boy. I’m just following the rules.”

“Sometimes, I think you don’t want us to get along. Or me to take this seriously. Did you know all those numbers add up to sixty-nine?”

“You’ve never heard the one about acting your age, huh?”

I took a moment to give the food truck a closer inspection. One of the tires was flat – essentially an insult – because Charlie created the truck from heavenly magic stuff. He obviously didn’t want me going anywhere anytime soon. The inside provided just enough room to move around a bit. The truck looked a few years old. I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not I was the first food guy.

There were, as Charlie had suggested, a few pieces of equipment already installed inside the truck. The mainstays were a small griddle, an ingredient dispenser, a refrigerator, and a small pantry. My available ingredients, at this stage, were: ten units of beef, three heads of lettuce, two tomatoes, and an onion. There wasn’t even any wine, which I intended to use for sauce making and not chugging.

“Anything else before I go?” the Angel asked. I looked out the window, there for the purpose of dispensing completed food orders. My initial inspection was completed. Next to the window, on a small counter area, was a strange box labeled: digital menu. I hit the button and it projected an empty screen into the air. The only other thing on the counter area was a small brass bell. I could already sense the bell was going to be trouble.

At my lack of response, Charlie prompted me again, “Seriously, Will. Anything else? I need a break.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“What do you need to rest for?” I asked. Part of my question was earnest, but mostly I didn’t want him to have his break. “You’re an angelic being. Do you even get tired?

“You’re kind of an exhausting guy, buddy.”

Quest: Grand Opening

Complete an initial menu with at least two offerings: 0/1

Spend 100C designing your food truck’s exterior: 0/1

Chef Boy: Open for business: 0/1

I looked back at him, but with those parting words, the angel disappeared from my little slice of Purgatory. I explored the edges of the foggy area. It felt almost solid as I ran my fingers over it. I couldn’t push past it, even applying force directly. I was stuck in this parking lot for the moment. I resisted for a few hours but eventually decided to meet my quest objectives out of sheer boredom. Charlie was trying to bore me into being a better person.

I started by approaching the white paint on the side of the food truck. Focusing on it, I was able to summon a menu for the decorations on the food truck. I was able to purchase plant life for the inside. There were murals, which were severely out of my price range, filling the whole side of the truck. The cheapest mural was ten times out of my budget. I found one option that was totally inside my budget at only 1C each. I ordered a hundred of them, stashing them in my pocket for future use.

The next step was utilizing the digital menu. As the owner of the store-food-truck-restaurant-thing, I was able to create menu items from the recipes I knew. It was also required to have ingredients for the menu items on hand. Charlie was smart; he didn’t want me advertising food I couldn’t make. There were only five recipes I was capable of: ground beef, onion beef, deconstructed taco, basic salad, and onion beef with tomato.

I ended up choosing two recipes that wouldn’t overlap ingredients: ground beef and basic salad. I named the ground beef menu item “Carnivore Taco”, getting the idea from the deconstructed taco recipe. The concept made me want to yell at somebody, but I let it go – mostly on account of there being no one to yell at. The other recipe, basic salad, I named “Rabbit Food”. That’s what my grandfather always called salads.

My first quest objective was completed. All the money was spent, but my second task remained unchanged. I knew exactly what the last task wanted me to do. It was a punishment from Charlie, probably because of needling him too hard. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself as all the mental health people said to or whatever.

There was only one thing left to do. Well, two things. I plastered all one hundred of the stickers I bought earlier all over the paint of the food truck. Each little sticker was a small emoji face. I had selected, of course, the smiling imp. There were devil faces all over my restaurant.

“Take that, Charlie. Chef Boy: Open for business.”

***

Thusly, the hero of our story found himself unhappily in Purgatory for an indeterminate amount of time. In order to move on, he’ll need to rise above himself in every way. He’ll need to make friends, cook food, and stop annoying Powerful Celestial Entities. Also, learning how to cook something other than ground beef might help. Will, if you want to go to the good place, you’ll have to work like… you know, the other place.