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You really want a sandwich. Not just any sandwich though, oh no, you want a grilled cheese from Cosmic Sandwich. They have the best damn grilled cheese in the city and it’s been a while. So you pull out your phone and pull up a new tab in the browser to go to CS’s website to find out if they’re even active right now. The deep purple text reads “we're open” against the black background, an address listed below. Woohoo! Cosmic Sandwich is a pop-up operation, never in the same place twice, and open only sporadically, presumably due to needing to find space.
Oh, even better, they're only a couple blocks away this time. You bundle up - fleecy jacket, hat, and gloves, since it's February, poncho since the sky has been threatening icy rain, or maybe sleet, since noon.
In just a few minutes you're walking in and breathing deep. The smell of frying meats and all the breads is fantastic. This location has a long counter, griddle and stove behind it, to your right. You wonder if those were already there - the place almost looks like it used to be a dance club, one of those industrial aesthetic ones that’s deliberately grungy. Maybe that was a bar once. There’s maybe ten two-person tables scattered across the rest of the floor space, just enough room that they don’t feel crammed together, but you sit down at the counter, feeling quite pleased that you apparently got here early today, since you seem to be the only customer right now. You recognize the cook as he turns to greet you, having heard your shoes squeak on the slightly sticky floor. You can smell the cleaning chemicals under the food smells - they must have had to scrub it down before they could put food in it. “Wh’t'll ya h’ve?” he grunts, deep voice carrying enough to make him understandable despite his slight mumble.
“I want two grilled cheese on the Cosmic Special bread, and a bowl, not cup, of tomato soup,” you say excitedly, practically giddy at the thought of it.
He looks you over for a few seconds longer than is polite, eyes squinted from the steam pots behind him. You are a bit small to be ordering so much, maybe he thinks you've got eyes bigger than your stomach. You don't. You’ve been here before, twice, and know what the portions are like versus how much you can eat. He doesn't seem to recognize you and that’s fine. He must meet a lot of customers after all, and you recently dyed your hair, so you don't look quite the same as when you were here before. You look back at him steadily. “Yeah okay,” he finally answers, turning to get your order ready.
First, he gives you a glass of water, since you didn't specify a drink. Then the show begins. You watch him slice the bread. Four thick slices of the Cosmic Special, a fluffy, seasoned white bread with these delicate little seeds dotted throughout. You've never been sure what those are - they're not sesames, or sunflower seeds - but they're tasty and the flavor and crunch work well with the cheeses and the soup.
The bread gets slathered with a generous amount of butter on one side, as does the griddle, and the first slices get set butter-side down on the hot surface with a satisfying sizzle. Then the cheeses: hearty slices of cheddar, Swiss, and mozzarella, topped with the other pieces of bread and left to melt into a glorious mass held together with bakery magic.
They're fried by ear, the cook listening for when the sizzling slows to know when they need to be flipped. Once they're making merry noises again, he reaches for a bowl and begins ladling the tomato soup into it. It's thicker and creamier than most tomato soup - you think the term is bisque, maybe? - and you watch eagerly as he sprinkles a little seasoning on top before setting it gently on a large oval plate, all the way to one side to leave room for the sandwiches.
In only a few more minutes, he's placing the plate in front of you and handing you a spoon wrapped in a napkin. “Thank you, looks and smells amazing as always!” you tell him before digging in, ignoring the surprise on his face. Maybe he doesn't get thanked that often. You wouldn't be surprised, people are so rude to restaurant staff. They're literally cooking for you, of course you're polite!
Just a few sips to start - you want to take your time, really savor it. Wait, aw shit. “Hey, is there a bathroom I can use?” He points toward the back of the building with a grunted “yeah” and you follow his finger’s direction with your eyes to the hallway just at the end of the counter. “Thanks, be right back!” you chirp and skedaddle.
By the time you finish up and wash your hands and get back to your food, there's another customer, seated three spaces down from your spot - looks like they got the ham on the Cosmic Special, a cold sandwich, which is why they already have their food.
You keep glancing over at them as you settle back down to your own food. They look kinda twitchy, long dark hair greasy and unbrushed, clothes rumpled and stained, pale eyes wild and exhausted at the same time. There’s an unhealthy pallor to their face. They look… unwell, and also possibly like they haven’t slept indoors, or possibly at all, in days. You’re concerned. Hopefully the food perks them back up. They’re certainly staring at it hard enough.
You dip the corner of your first sandwich into the soup, taking that first incredible bite. Your eyes slip closed and an appreciative hum buzzes in your throat - this really is the best grilled cheese in the city. You take your time chewing, keeping your eyes closed as you swallow. You’ve done this before, you know what’s coming, and you’ll get dizzy if your eyes are open.
As the bite of cheese, bread, and soup slips down your gullet, you feel it start: the deep pulling sensation, as though a rope were tied around your bottom ribs and tugging ever-so-lightly. Then the sight: swirls of color, nothing solid yet, and a gentle hum that your ears don’t actually hear.
As the initial hit passes, you open your eyes, seeing the other customer looking at you with wide eyes. They look at you, then down at their sandwich. Then at yours, and then back up at you again. The cycle repeats, one of your eyebrows slowly rising as finally they take a small, careful bite.
They seem almost disappointed when nothing seems to happen. You could have told them that it’s the seeds that cause the… hallucinations, visions, whatever they are, and that the edges often don’t contain any. You specifically bit where you did to get the initial burst out of the way; it’s always the most disorienting. You take another bite, getting another seed. The random swirls begin to take on very rough shapes in your mind’s eye, the hum getting a bit louder.
The scruffy person begins to wolf the sandwich down, clearly ravenous, before either you or the cook can warn them to slow down. They slump heavily into the chair back, eyes wide and no longer seeing reality, and you and the cook shake your heads in unison. You take a third bite, this one less dainty but not the cheek-bulging mouthfuls of the other customer either.
There it is. The shapes begin to take form: tall buildings with spires that make no logical sense. The hum begins to coalesce into words just barely recognizable as speech at that volume, though you can’t tell if it’s one voice or many, or what it’s saying. Another bite and it becomes clearer. The spires jut into a dark sky, a bright splash of color spilled across it over your head like the first stroke on a fresh black canvas, and the words are now rhythmic.
Your physical eyes are still watching the scruffy customer as they begin to shake, shivering as though they’d been out in the rain you can now hear outside. You wonder if they’re seeing the same vision as you - you know not everybody does by -
The screaming begins, cutting off the thought. What a drama queen! You sigh as you take another bite. If the sandwiches weren’t so damn good you wouldn’t put up with it. You can start to see some of the strange constellations above the nonsense buildings, clear in the moonless night. The words are a song now, though you still can’t make out what they’re saying.
Another bite, halfway through the first sandwich, and you start to get tactile sensations as the vision continues to solidify. The strange dryness of a lack of atmosphere becomes noticeable as the song grows loud enough, now, that you can recognize it as being transmitted through your bones in this strange, airless place.
You finish your sandwich as the vision gets more and more detail: the way the roads curve oddly, pale stone slabs somehow making turns despite having only straight lines when you actually look at them (you don’t, it makes your eyes hurt after a while), the weirdly placed staircases on the sides of buildings that some kind of beings are still walking on like gravity was a mere suggestion, the way the colorful dust cloud in the sky seems to be emitting a pulsing light all its own - it’s like being in an Escher drawing. The song rattles you as you begin to follow the path under your feet, led by that weird tugging in your ribs, your bones beginning to ache slightly from the vibrations. You ignore the trickle of blood coming out of your right ear as the words try to worm their way into your brain and can’t find space.
The other customer is crying now, their screaming quieting down into terrified babble. Apparently the two of you are having roughly the same vision, because they keep mentioning that they shouldn’t be able to breathe and what is that glowing cloud?
You shake your head and slowly munch your way through your second sandwich, watching the scruffy figure have a breakdown, nose bleeding and eyes rolling in their sockets as they cry. You follow the path in your mind’s eye as you eat, not taking a single step but somehow moving steadily, nodding politely as citizens step out of your way. One rude one tries to brush tentacles against you as you pass, but doesn’t actually manage to touch you, for which you’re grateful. You really don’t feel like dealing with your touch aversion from a phantom touch today!
Both ears bleed now, and you can feel that happening to your real body as well, though you don’t bother to reach up and check. You’d kept the poncho on for a reason, and this hat was basically dead anyway, so you didn’t mind if it got some blood on it.
The other customer starts screaming again, but it’s muffled. You realize why when you open your eyes to look at them, having not realized you’d closed them again: they’ve stuffed their fingers in their mouth and are chewing. You can hear the tearing noises as their flesh gives in to the sharp pressure of their teeth. The cook has made his way around the counter and is trying to get the person’s hands away from their mouth. It isn’t working - the panic has made them strong, and the cook is more resigned than desperate.
But the cook’s hands on the customer’s skin makes the screaming worse, bloodshot white sclera visible all around their iris like a panicked horse as they stare up into the face of the cook like they’ve never seen him before - though they must have, the cook is the only one on shift as far as you can tell, and the person had a sandwich so they must have ordered. Finally the cook manages to force the chewed-on hand away from their face, but the awful cracking and wet ripping says that the damage has already been done. They managed to chew off one of their own fingers. Poor bastard.
With a disgusted sigh, the cook gives it up - there’s not gonna be any saving this one. The customer seizes the remainder of their sandwich in their unmangled hand and finishes it in one big bite. You hear the noise of their teeth and the bones of the finger still in their mouth colliding, a terrible splintering sound like when people chew on hard candies. You hunch your shoulders to try and block some of it out - you always hated that noise, and some of your asshole cousins would chew peppermints loudly near you on purpose. There are reasons you don’t go to “family” winter celebrations.
The person manages to swallow their mouthful - you can hear the wet, pneumonia-like rasp of their breath as the bone splinters tear up their throat on the way down - and they give a final, terrible scream, full of gurgling as they begin to drown in the blood from their destroyed trachea. Their eyes are wide and leaking more blood as they fall out of the chair that had been pushed sideways by the cook when he attempted to save their hand, body convulsing until their head strikes the floor hard and they stop moving. You watch something thicker than blood begin to pool behind and under their head before movement in your peripheral vision causes you to turn your head.
The cook is staring at you, watery green eyes wide in his broad face, tentacles writhing in his beard net. You’ve seen his name, written on his nametag, but you’ve never been sure how to pronounce the damn thing. “Are you one of Grandma Shub’s Young, then?” he finally asks, voice much clearer than when you first walked in. “You seem very unbothered by…” he motions at the dead person on the floor.
You lift your hat from your right ear, turning your head to show him the blood. “Nope. Just been here before. This’s my third time, I knew what was coming.” You take hold of the bowl now that your sandwiches are gone and take a drink directly from it. “Fully human, so far as I know.”
His disbelief is almost a tactile sensation. “How.” It’s not a question. You finish your soup, draining the bowl, finally realizing that he really thought he had never had a repeat customer, or at least not a human one.
You shrug as you set it down. “I dunno.”
“Do you not see them?”
“What, the weird cities on strange, airless planets under unfamiliar skies, or under seas and inhabited only by fish and the dead, or inside the mountains and shining with light that burns cold? No, I see them.”
“So you must not hear, then.”
“The songs that rattle my bones, and whisper wickedly about secrets beyond human comprehension, if only I listened? Nah, those’re great. Good beats. The singers harmonize well.”
He shook his head, clearly thinking you were lying, somehow. “Do you just not experience fear?” The tone is incredulous.
You shrug. “Sure I do. I think I’m just immune to existentialism.”
“Immune to -”
“Well, yeah. Near as I can tell, existentialism - y’know, existential dread, or terror - is a product of thinking that the universe is rational and understandable by humans, and then having that rug yanked out from under you and finding out that was you thought was a solid foundation is actually air.”
The cook nods slowly, not necessarily in agreement but at least understanding what you're saying.
“Well, I just… don’t.” Seeing his confusion, you elaborate. “I’ve never actually thought that the universe is rational and understandable by humans. I know how evolution works, and we evolved to survive, not to discern truth. Flowers look much prettier under ultraviolet because they’re actually trying to attract pollinators who see in ultraviolet. Some fish can feel electricity. There’s a nebula somewhere that apparently would taste like raspberry liquor if we could drink it without dying. The universe is absurd, rationality was never promised to our pathetic human brains, and I’ve literally never thought otherwise.” You shrug again, done with your little speech, and rise, resettling your poncho as you prepare to leave. “Anywho, thanks for the meal. You really do have the best grilled cheese in the city. How much?”
He squints at you, very blatantly this time, as if trying to find a lie or a fault in you. “Y’know what? On the house. It’s not like I need money anyway, I just do this when I want to get away for a week or so.”
“Aw, sweet! Thanks Cuh… Cuth… How do you say your name, anyway?”
He snorts, a strange sound out of someone with no nose, picking up the mop and bucket behind the counter and moving around to clean up the mess. “It’s Cthulhu.”
You commit the pronunciation to memory. “Right, got it. Hopefully see ya again, Cthulhu!” You wander back out of the shop, poncho hood pulled back up to protect against the icy rain steadily pounding the empty sidewalk. Yeah, those sandwiches really were worth the hassle of having to deal with the visions and the screaming of other customers. Time to go home and fall happily to sleep. Hopefully you wouldn’t dream of the alien city again!