Francine and Manuel take a smoke break in the back alley behind Yaws, serenaded by the sounds of automotive traffic, people passing by on the sidewalk, clanking and yelling from the kitchen, and the roar of the baseball game in the distance. "So I heard you got a new boyfriend," Manuel says.
"Where'd you hear that?" Francine says, watching a man in a "Cleaveland Rocks" t-shirt dig through a dumpster nearby as twilight falls.
"I think Ritchie told me. What's he got that I don't got, baby? Is he tall?"
"He's kind of tall, but not real tall," Francine says, as the man digging through the dumpster dives in it, his long legs sticking out in the air.
"You know tall guys don't live as long as shorter guys, don't you? Their parts wear out quicker. Shorter guys are where it's at."
"Where what's at?" Francine says, as the man in the dumpster disappears from view entirely.
"Ah, you know what I mean. Hey, you ever heard that Genesis song, 'Get 'Em Out By Friday'?"
"No," Francine says, looking at Manuel, his apron stained with today's specials.
"It's about how in the future they're going to genetically engineer people to be shorter so they don't consume as many resources. Everybody thinks it's great to be tall, but what they don't realize is that taller people consume a bunch more stuff than shorter folk. And with more people around the world eating more sugar and protein and stuff, they're all getting taller. Six billion people at six feet tall or nine billion people at nine feet tall need more food than people in the past and are going to wear the planet out. They need more water. They produce more waste. They need more clothing because they're bigger. They need bigger cars to get around. They need bigger houses so they don't bump their heads on the ceilings. They need more fuel to heat the houses because they're bigger. They need more . . ."
Francine interrupts, "I get the idea, Manuel."
"I mean look at our serving sizes here. They wouldn't need to be so big if people were smaller. I'm always almost running out of things in the kitchen as is. I don't need bigger people needing even more food."
"So, what should we do?" Francine asks, as the man in the dumpster appears again, his head popping out of the top.
"Get back to work before Michael yells at us," Manuel says, throwing the remains of his cigarette in a puddle on the ground.
"No, I mean about people getting bigger," Francine says, watching the man in the dumpster climb out clutching a bag of something.
"Ah, fucksticks, I don't know. I hope my kids are tall though," Manuel says, turning to the man in the dumpster, "Hey, man, I'm just about to throw out some soup. You want some of that?"
The man approaches and nods.
"What'd you find in the dumpster?" Francine asks him.
The man, who is very tall, holds up his bag. "Nothing. This is just my stuff from before. There's never anything good in that dumpster. It's just where I go when I need to take a shit."
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.
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