A tall boy stood, slouched over, behind a cash register. His eyes were glazed over, not being used to see the dull reality of his job at Mcdonalds, but instead immersing himself in a colorful fantasy, where he didn’t have to pretend to enjoy serving old people hamburgers. A chime cut through the air signaling the opening of the front door. The tall boy grunted at the sight of the customer and imperceptibly straightened his shoulders and put on his signature customer service smile.

“Hi, welcome to McDonald’s, how may I help you today?” he said the well-rehearsed line for what must have been the millionth time. The only good part of working a dead-end job like this was that he didn’t have to try, he could practically do it with his eyes closed.

“Aaron, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your family getting ready for our graduation ceremony?” the customer said

"Oh, hi John. I didn’t realize it was you,” Aaron said before putting on his glasses. “The situation is a bit complicated, but I'll be there, I’m just finishing my shift. Why are you here?”

“A complicated situation, that sounds pretty interesting, you’ll have to tell me about it sometime. More importantly, It’s 2 for 1 Friday. I can get two cheeseburgers for the price of one. I’ve been waiting all week,” he said while handing Aaron some money.

Aaron quickly pushed some buttons on the cash register without looking down. “Hey, at least pretend to pay attention to my order, those burgers are important to me,” John said.

“Why, the buttons don’t move. They’re in the same place every time,” Aaron said as he grabbed some coins from the bottom of the cash register without looking. ”Your change is two cents. Do you want anything else?”

“Nah, I’m good,” he paused as a mischievous smile crossed his face. “Keep the change,” he said as suavely as possible. Aaron and John burst out laughing.

“Wow, very cool dumbass. James Bond better watch out, his position as coolest man alive is in danger,” Aaron said after he stopped laughing. “I’ll finish up here then join you,” Aaron said as he pointed to a short line of people waiting behind John, who looked pissed off that they had to wait an extra 30 seconds before placing their orders.

John rubbed his head sheepishly and took a seat in the corner of the restaurant. A couple of minutes later Aaron brought John his order. John rifled through the to-go bag and pulled out his cheeseburgers. “There’s extra ketchup at the bottom of the bag, I have no idea how you can stomach the stuff. It should be a war crime to do that to a tomato,” Aaron said.

“It’s an acquired taste like a fine whiskey,” John said chuckling at his joke. Aaron stared at him blankly. "Fine, since I’m such a nice guy, I’ll give you one of my burgers,” John said as he tossed a burger to Aaron.

“Are you sure it's not because you’re worried about getting fat,” Aaron said.

“Are you joking? These babies will never get fat, just look at them,” John said poking his biceps.

“Eh, they’re alright, I’ve seen girls with bigger arms,” Aaron said causing John to choke on his burger.

“What type of girls are you looking at, gorillas?”

“Besides, I read that most high school football players really let themselves go in their 30’s. I heard that they’re something like 40% more likely to be obese than the average person."

“I’m not just any football player, I’m the quarterback. That means I’m different. Besides I won’t be that old for a long time, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever you say,” Aaron said.as he took a bite out of his burger. The two boys enjoyed the rest of their burgers in peace or at least the closest thing you could get to peace in a McDonalds.

John crumbled the burger wrapper into a ball and then threw it at Aaron. “So Mr. Harvard, what’s this mysterious situation that’s making you work at McDonald's on the day of your graduation ceremony? If I had to guess,” John paused to think. “The reason you’re here is that you found out that Ashley is inexplicably attracted to guys who work overtime at McDonald's.”

“No,” Aaron quickly refused, his face turning red. “I’m trying to save up some money, because I’m thinking of doing something stupid, so I’ll need a bit of a cushion to fall back on.”

“Oh, what’s that? Knowing you it couldn’t be that bad of an idea.”

“I think I’m gonna drop out of college,” Aaron said quietly. “Well, I’m not sure if drop out would be the correct term because, I haven’t attended any classes at Harvard yet, but you get the idea.”

“Wow, that sounds like a really bad idea. Why aren’t you going?”

“It’s a bit hard to explain, but I want to follow my passion in life and I feel like if I go to Harvard I’ll be swept up in it all and before I know it I’ll be 40 years old working a boring office job. Does that make any sense?” Aaron said.

“Not really. It sounds pretty dumb to me,” John said.

Aaron laughed. “It doesn’t make sense to me either. I have thousands of arguments for why I should go, but for some reason, none of them mean anything to me,” Aaron paused, and looked around the lifeless interior of McDonald's. Dull grey paint covered the walls and worn down red coated the seats. It all felt suffocating to Aaron, he couldn’t imagine working a job like this for the rest of his life. Of course, as he got older the job would surely change, but the change would be surface-level at best. Instead of the cheesy Mcdonald's uniform, he would be forced to wear a restrictive suit. Instead of an angry manager yelling at him for messing up an order, it would be an angry middle management person yelling at him for failing to close a sale. To Aaron, it all seemed like the same thing, no freedom, no creativity, and no happiness. “I think the real reason I don’t want to go is that I don’t deserve to be there.”

“What the hell does that mean? You had the highest score on the entrance exam in the state.”

Aaron looked down at the table. “Well actually, I…” A loud phone alarm sounded off, stopping Aaron from finishing his sentence.

“Sorry, I set an alarm for when I should start heading to the school for the ceremony,” John said, as he fiddled with his phone to turn off the alarm. “What were you saying?”

Aaron took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve made my choice. I’ll just have to live with it,” he said with newfound confidence.

“I like the confidence, have you told your Mom yet?”

“No,” Aaron froze in shock, as he felt his blood run cold. “I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“Whatever you say, buddy, want me to drive you to the school.”

“Sure, just let me grab my backpack,” Aaron said. He met John in the parking lot and opened the door to John’s old Honda civic. “Would it kill you to clean, every once in a while,” Aaron said while he tossed McDonalds bags and burger wrappers into the back of the car.

“Yes,” John said sarcastically, as he started the car and began to drive to school. ”Since you’re in the mood for making big life-changing decisions today, do you think you’ll finally ask Ashley out. This is probably the last chance you’ll ever get,” he jokingly asked.

“You know what? I’m gonna do it,” Aaron said.

“Actually? I thought you’d never do it,” John said in shock.

“I’ve always dreamed of doing it, so why not,” Aaron said faking his confidence and hiding his sweaty palms. If he was this nervous just thinking about asking her out, how would he feel when he actually asked her out?

“What are you going to say to her?”

“I don’t know. I’ll come up with something in the moment. I don’t want to think about it,” Aaron said as they pulled into the school’s hidden side parking lot.

“Don’t be nervous, you got this. If you say what you said to Sydney, you’ll have a 100% chance of success,” John then turned and looked at Aaron’s pale face. ”Or maybe 90% is a safer bet.”

“Hey, shut up you don’t look too good either, and don’t bring up Sydney, it’s embarrassing to remember.” Aaron climbed out of the car. John smiled, ready to recount the story of how Aaron was embarrassingly rejected by Sydney. “John shut up, or do I have to remind you what happened with Kate.”

“Chill man, no need to bring that up,” John said, the two of them laughed remembering all the good times they had together in high school. “I can’t believe this is it. Soon we’ll go off our own ways in the world and probably never see each other again, it’s kinda sad.”

"Stop being so dramatic, we’ll both be in California for the next couple of months, so don’t worry about it,” Aaron said.

“I guess I could fit seeing you one more time into my schedule,” John said, struggling to not laugh at his joke.

“Has anyone ever told you that you should be a comedian? Anyways, we could put on the graduation robes here, there isn’t anyone around.”

“I ain’t putting on that damn robe till I have to. I look like some nerd from Harry Potter in it.”

“I thought you liked Harry Potter?” Aaron asked.

"I used to like Harry Potter,” John said, emphasizing the past tense of the sentence. “Don’t tell anyone that,” John said, his face slightly red.

Suddenly, a bizarre buzzing sound filled the air, blocking out all other sounds and making it hard to think. The earth erupted into motion as if it was a dog shaking out water from its fur. Light posts swayed in the air and the asphalt cracked. The earthquake was so intense that even the air itself seemed to vibrate. Without warning the buzzing sound and the shaking stopped. For a moment everything was quiet, then screams rang out in the distance.

Welcome To The System