An abandoned shopping center in Boise, Idaho.

A tumbleweed rolls through the asphalt ghosttown.

Boarded windows on what was once a furniture store…

‘FOR SALE’ painted on a wooden board in a yogurt shop’s window.

There’s only one shop left standing…

A buffet restaurant.

Its sign blinks in alternating gaudy pink-and-yellow flashing lights…



Under the logo is a poster plastered…

SENIOR DISCOUNT! CENTURIONS WELCOME!

---

Licky Dicky’s few customers are almost entirely seniors.

A lady in a pink bathrobe and bath slippers shovels a ladle full of El Landerson-chiladas onto her plate…

A pair of old trembling hands wield tongs to determinedly fish out a single Kentucky-Fried Chicken Smack…

Another hand is feebly raised…

”Oh, pardon me, sir!”

The Manager, a little person in a black polo, fills a customer’s cup to the brim from his carafe of Safari Ceviche…

”There! Thank you for dining at Licky D-”

Suddenly, a shadow looms over the Manager…

The Manager turns around.

Toward the emotionless visage of…

”Dom Durango!” The Manager bows courteously! ”Sir, I am a HUGE fan of your microwave meals! As a fellow businessman in the art of discount culinary innovation, you’ve insp-”

”I want to talk to your staff.”

…The Manager’s plastered smile slips. ”May I ask… what this discussion pertains to?”

”Food.”

---

”Attention!” The Manager claps his hands! ”A very special customer had some… notes… after dining with us!”

An odd foursome of cooks barely bother looking up from their stations.

”Please welcome! Dom Dur-OOF!”

Dom shoulders through the Manager, knocking the short fella into the wall! Pots and pans clatter to the floor!

The four chefs spin toward the sound.

To see Dom before them.

”Which of you made the enchiladas?”

A chef in a luchador mask raises a spatula. ”Hola, señor! Muy bien, sí?”

”No.”

”...No? No me entiendes…”

“Mmm, I thought ‘no’ in spanish meant ‘no’ in english.” Dom shrugs. ”I’ll say it another way.”

SWOOP! Dom scoops his hands around the luchador chef’s skull!

Dom lifts him into the air.

”Ayyyyyyyyiyiyi!”

”Your flavors are bland. No spice to your dishes. You create nothing AND make what little you serve feel like filler. You not only lack the will to create anything of merit… You lack…”

JAM! Dom drives his thumbs into the chef’s mask holes!

”AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Blood streams from his eyes!

”The vision.”

Dom releases the luchador chef!

”Mis ojos!” He screams in agony on the floor.

”Now you have an excuse for why you’ll never create anything worth eating.”

Dom approaches a small lady chef with her chef hat askew.

”And you are?”

The lady chef’s eyes twinkle with barely-contained manic energy!

”I’m Ker-AAAAAAAZY Deena! I make foods of absolutely INSANE proportions!”

…Dom blinks disinterestedly.

”Ah. So, you made the… Crazy Deena’s Ravioli The Size of a Human Skull.”

”Haha, that’s right! I’m Ker-AAAAAA-”

”You know, I stopped by the restaurant last week. You served your… zany take on Ravioli then, correct?”

”Yeah Made it two weeks in a row! C-cuz… I’m K-”

”Crazy, right. So, you made two different Ravioli batches?”

…Zany Deena’s crazy-eyed stare suddenly looks sane… and caught.

”...Um… y-y-yeah!”

”Interesting. Because,  last week I… signed a ravioli.”

Dom drops a plate with a giant Ravioli skull sitting on it. He takes his finger and flicks it over.

On the underside… a faded ‘Dom’ with last week’s date in sharpie.

”This is LAST WEEK’S FOOD! REHEATED!”

Deena’s eyes are terrified!

”I-i-i-it keeps! It’s still good!” Deena looks past Dom to the Manager. “Please! Don’t fire me!”

”…Firing you… interesting.”

Dom grabs her skull…

His other hand turns on the stove! He SHOVES her skull into the flames!

”EEEEEEEEEK!”

She runs outside, her hair on fire… It’s unlikely she knows ‘stop, drop, and roll’...

”And that leaves you two…”

A blonde goof in a Safari hat nods.

”Oi! I only cook what I hunt!” Safari Chef smiles affably. ”You gonna tell me you didn’t like my shrimp-on-the-barbie?”

A man dressed like Colonel Sanders, with hands the size of basketballs, pulls a pan of chicken from an oven.

”You like violent wordplay, Durango?”  When Kentucky Chef cracks his massive knuckles, it sounds like a tree branch snapping. ”Why don’t I tell you what the five chicken fingers said to the face…”

Dom cracks his neck.

”You two are gimmick chefs, begging for table scraps with your neat little joke regional dishes… Australia… Kentucky… How one-note.”

”My culinary empire serves food from all seven continents. Asia, South America, Africa… Fucking people from Andorra to Zimbabwe would rather eat my microwave meal take on their cuisine than their own mother’s cooking.”

“You two aren’t my peers. You’re not even my dinner. You’re a heap of slop, served in a pig trough….”

Dom turns back to The Manager.

“I could take this hellhole, your sub-par ingredients and your lackluster chefs… And over-fucking-night, turn this into a Michellin Star establishment.”

The Manager’s eyes go from fear to dollar signs.

”...I could.”

”But I won’t.”

“I have no interest in accomplishments. In trophies… medals… championship belts.”

“I only want two things.”

Dom turns back toward the two advancing chefs…

“To make every human feel as cold as I do…”

Safari Chef jabs with his barbecue fork! Kentucky Chef charges with a six-piece bucket!

Dom reaches backwards… for a steak knife.

”And… to feed...”

---

The front door of Licky Dicky’s opens…

Smoke billows out.

The kitchen’s a raging inferno.

The elderly customers slowly shuffle into the parking lot like slow-motion mice scattering from a shipwreck.

Through the front door, battered and bleeding…

Dom Durango.

He sits down on the curb.

”I ask to be filled… And you serve four bland bite-sized portions?”

He stares into the camera with his cold black eyes.

”I’ll consume them all. Knowing it won’t fill me. I’ll leave that ring a clean plate… AND a crime scene.”

“I want you to see what happens when you leave your hungriest stomach aching for more.”

…

”Why?”

“Fuck you, Lichter. That’s why.”