Fishing a chunk of meat out of the plate, the customer bit greedily onto it. The meat wasn't particularly noble; it was full of fiber, as if the animal it came from was old. But the slow simmering in red sauce made it juicy despite its imperfections. The sauce had an acrid, acidic smell, as if it wasn't fresh. For a moment, the customer frowned in displeasure, as the smell contaminated the taste of the meat, which was also bitter for a moment. However, the smell receded as he put the spoon back on the plate, and his taste buds told him that the meat was perfectly fine, perhaps the best part of the dish. It was a humble dish of rice with some Bolognese for a humble worker.

He gestured to the woman behind the counter to come closer. Her hair was disheveled, and the bags under her eyes spoke of a tired person with a thousand things running through her mind, but he didn't care.

"Salt?" he huffed, still incredulous of the reluctance that Helen's Delicia's cook had to properly season his meals. Everyone knew that a proper worker's meal needed enough salt and pepper to cover for the meal's limitations. The owner of The Crockpot, the newly opened restaurant in the next block, certainly understood this. Helen made her way through the empty tables to the kitchen, where she fetched the shaker.

The customer thought about how The Crockpot had forced Helen's Delicia to halve her prices. Before, she had no competition, and while most prices were reasonable, why be satisfied with reasonable when you could get it cheaper? The shaker slamming on the table broke his reverie; he frowned at the woman's rudeness. The shakers should already be on the table, as far as he was concerned, and the fact that they weren't spoke poorly of the shabby place. It was incredible how, in less than two months, the quality of the food dropped, the staff was reduced to just Helen and her husband, and maintenance seemed to be kept at a minimum.

The customer salted his food, and Helen took the shaker back to the kitchen. He finished his meal and promised himself never to come back. He didn't care if the store was family-run, had more history in the neighborhood, or if they were good people. "This place is done for; they won't make it through the year," he thought as he walked out the door.

Helen sighed as she closed the store. It was barely 10 PM, but she knew no new customers would arrive, as they hadn't the day before, nor the day before that, nor the week before that. They were hanging on a thread, thanks to lunch people who had to get back to work and couldn't afford to make the queue to The Crockpot. Sometimes, when the store was empty, which lately had been happening more and more often, she walked out to brush the sidewalk and watched with resentment how people lined up outside that damn store, whereas they had not a single soul.

It was a vicious cycle; the more people went to The Crockpot, the better setup they could afford, further sinking her shop into oblivion. Her neighbors looked at her with pity sometimes and with indignation at others, as if she was somehow a thief because she couldn't afford to make the deals franchises had.

As she cleaned the restaurant to welcome the two or three regulars tomorrow, she daydreamed about all the ifs that could've prevented this situation: if she had worked more hours, if she had savings, if she had charged extra from the get-go and expanded her shop, if she had cut down expenses she had to cut now—countless possibilities that no longer mattered. It was too late; it didn't matter if she turned the restaurant into a 24/7 or rented her own house to strangers; it was all in vain. The Crockpot had won; Helen's Delicia was on its dying breath.

Sometimes she wondered if just closing down the shop would spare her the embarrassment of saying "no" to the ever-expanding list of recipes she no longer had available. Still, when she got home and saw her sick little son, barely eight years old, lying in bed where he had been all day, a force of will kept her going. She had read about motherly instincts giving women enough force to lift cars and other Herculean feats, but for her, it was just shutting down her brain and moving forward like a machine.

Combing his hair, she held back tears of guilt for not being able to afford better treatments. She imagined all the things they had money for: the house, now gloomy and dirty, with broken light bulbs they couldn't replace and broken electronics they couldn't fix, fading away, replaced by a house—her house—bright and cheery, filled with toys and warm light, like those TV shows where  a team of good Samaritans restored some old man's rat-infested house into the place everyone would like to live. She lay down next to her son's bed and fell asleep with that image, not bothering to go to her marital bed, as her husband would not be returning until morning.

The door banging woke her up. She turned to the clock and saw the horror.

"Seven-fifty in the morning! I'm running late!" She sped through the house, wiped last night's drool, and kissed her husband goodbye. By the time she got to the shop, she saw the butcher's truck driving away. She grabbed her head, thinking of all the consequences: how she couldn't open the store without having meat on the menu. What was she going to serve? Dry pasta? This would cost her the last few regulars she had left!

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She took the only decision she thought rational. She went to the local butcher shop and winced at the steep prices. It was at least twice what she usually paid, but it was the only move available. She emptied her purse at the shop and shrugged off the nasty comments of the butcher, who attempted to make a tactless joke about a restaurant owner making groceries at end-consumer shops.

She opened the store and put on the apron, barely having time to prepare some pies and sauces before the breakfast folk came in. When she heard the doorbell ringing, she lit up. A customer so early was a good sign! She came out of the kitchen to greet her, but what she saw definitely didn't look like the type of customer she was used to serving. She was wearing office worker-type clothing and had a folder under her arm; her partner looked around the shop while shaking his head.

"Health inspection, ma'am. May I see your papers?"

Helen felt her world crumble. She had no papers; she had stopped paying most taxes and fumigation about a month ago, when she had to pick between restocking or paying taxes. She felt lightheaded and took a seat; the woman saw her weakness and pressed on like a vulture.

"Ma'am, if you don't have the papers, we're going to have to close you down. You understand?"

The other man gestured to the walls, the floors, even the ceiling, and started calling out breaches of regulations.

"No emergency lights, no emergency exit, the fire extinguisher is expired, no dummy handle on the kitchen's door... You can't operate like this! When was the last fumigation?"

Helen was speechless; the woman was already writing something in her notebook, and without even asking, they made their way into the kitchen, rummaging through her stuff, opening her fridge, taking even more notes. She started sweating cold. She imagined the store closing down, the fine, the family hanging on her husband's part-time wage, and shuddered. They wouldn't be able to afford taking care of their son; what if he had an emergency? What if sadness worsened his sickness? They were going to kill him with those cold eyes and notebooks.

And no one would help them. Not her parents, nor her brother, absolutely not her neighbors... She leaned against the counter, feeling herself numb. The woman handed her a paper and a pen.

"We're going to shut down the store, ma'am. You can't operate like this. We need you to sign here and here..."

She acted on impulse, without even knowing how, her hand holding the handle of a butcher's knife, the blade deeply embedded in the inspector's gut. The woman gurgled blood and fell flat on the floor; the man started screaming and running towards the exit, but in his zealotry for meddling with her kitchen, he was now on the opposite end, and she was standing right between the man and his goal. She didn't think; she just knew that she had to see this through to the end.

The man tried to tackle her out of the way, but only facilitated the knife getting a bigger chunk of his flesh as it slashed against his neck. Helen watched the blood spray all over the walls and, still groggy from all the adrenaline, closed the store. Shortest workday ever, she thought. She also thought that now that she got a better look at the woman, she was quite young—pretty, even—now that the evil, sadistic glint in her eyes had faded away.

The cut dug through the flesh, and Helen felt the blade slip inside the meat. Fresh cuts were definitely different from frozen; the blood made everything squishy. The sight of the white bone made her queasy, but if she had learned something these past few months, it was how to shut down her brain. She thought of the new menu: seasoned ribs, grilled steaks, tacos... Her grandmother had even taught her how to make good use of steamed lungs and brain ravioli.

It had been a year since the incident. Bright lights bathed Helen's Delicia's full tables, where families of all social standards greedily dug into their food. The poor chose her great prices, and the middle class came for the unique flavor of the artisan cuisine. A certain customer who had long forgotten his promise sat at the table and didn't bother picking just the meat; he spooned as much as he could and shoved it down his throat, barely tasting the food.

The soft and tender meat of a young animal that didn't walk around too much spread its flavor to the sweet red sauce and the eggy pasta, a perfect accompaniment. A smile extended over his usually bitter face; the good food revitalized him, and he considered that perhaps life was simple, and men lived only for good food and good women, like the fine lady who tended the store, now talking to regulars at one of the tables. Her hair was silky, and no preocupation showed on her cheery face.

Another woman worked as cashier, and a young boy, probably one of the neighbors, helped serve the tables. Helen's son tugged her shirt and looked at her with sparkly eyes.

"What is it, sweetie?" she asked in a soft voice.

"Mommy, Mommy, may I have a taco?"

The family at the table laughed at the young boy's enthusiasm as she explained how much the little kid enjoyed her cooking.

"Ha! Here, have a bite of mine!" said an old man, handing him a taco. The boy took a good bite, wasting none of the delicious ground meat, smiling as the juices ran down his cheek.