Simon sat alone at your table. All of his friends have already fled, having to return home and such, but he remains for a while, annoyed at their antics.
“Look at all this.”
He says under your breath. They had ordered a feast of different foods. Plates and plates full of meals, and most of those meals still remained. His comrades barely touched the smorgasbord of food they had ordered, leaving it to waste, without even cleaning up.
“What a waist.” He says, staring at the discarded food.
“Are you…umm… done with your meal sir?”
He looks up to see a young man, who worked at the diner, standing at the table. He looked shy, his face giving off a timid expression, He was quite short but was a bit portly, his belly tucked into his uniform.
“I am…” Simon says, disapprovingly.
“Im really sorry about this mess, my party couldn’t care less about all this food they wasted.”
“Oh, umm… It won’t go to waste, sir.”
Simon gives him a puzzled look.
“…What do you mean?.” Simon questions
“Well, that’s my job. The owner thought he could save a fortune if he didn’t have to pay for trash bills and… bags. So he hired me to… umm… eat it.”
Simon's look remained puzzled for a different reason.
“So your job is too, eat everybody’s leftovers?”
The man gained a look of embarrassment, not making eye contact.
“Yes… sir.”
He points at his name tag.
“Rob, Waste Disposal”
Rob looks at the table.
“So… if you're done with this… I’ll get to, umm… work.”
Simon's expression relaxed a bit, still baffled by Rob's position.
“Oh, umm sure. Go ahead. My friends bailed on me, so I’m waiting for my ride.”
Rob looked at him with query.
“So, you’re gonna… be here? umm… you don’t mind if I do that while your here… do you?”
“No, go on ahead.” Simon gestures to the table.
Rob darts his head to the table, at Simon, then back at the table. He shuffles over to the booth across from Simon, and sits down, squeezing his belly and butt between the table and booth.
He hesitates for a moment, before grabbing an uneaten burger, and gets to work. Taking large bites, quickly shoving it into his mouth. He practically fits the entire burger into his mouth, before swallowing, and he tosses the rest into his mouth as it follows suit. He grabs a second burger and repeats, eating it as quickly as he can. He downs the second, then grabs
a large fry, and dumps the whole thing in his mouth, chews for a second, and swallows. Without hesitation he grabs a practically full soda. He removes the lid, and starts chugging
gulp, gulp, gulp
He slams the empty cup down, and sits there, breathing heavily. His belly pressing against the table with each breath.
“You alright?” Simons asks.
“Huff… umm… yeah… I just… need a second.”
Simon looks around the diner, just about closing, no one else seems to be seated anywhere.
“How did you get this job anyway? Were you like a professional eater or something?” Simon questions, staring at the out of breath Rob.
“Umm… not, really… My boss was just hiring for this, and I thought since I’d be eating all day, I’d pay less on food.” Rob states as he grabs a slice of pizza, rolls it up, and shoves the entire thing in his mouth.
“You’re pretty good at this honestly.”
Rob looks over to Simon, mouth full of pizza.
“-Gulp. Umm… thanks.”
Rob says, flustered, before grabbing another slice repeating the process.
Simon looks down at the table. Despite how fast Rob seemed to be eating, he had only cleared about over a quarter of the table. Simon looked at Rob. He felt bad he had to sit there all this time, and eat this food. At this rate it would be far past closing before he was done.
“Do you want some help?”
Rob swallowed the last price of pizza, before glancing nervously at Simon.
“Help?”
“Yeah, I could probably eat a few things on the-“
Before Simon could finish, Rob clumsily blurted out.
“No. no no no… If it’s not ME who eats all this food, my boss will be… umm… think my ability is slipping.”
Simon frowned.
“Oh. Well I don’t want you to sit here all night…”
Rob was think of what to say. Before his thought could finish…
“I could help YOU eat it.”
Rob looked at Simon again, confused at what he meant.
“What… what do you mean?”
Simon rose from his booth, and walked to the other side of the table, and sat next to Rob.
“If your boss needs YOU to eat it, than I could help YOU do it.”
Rob looked at Simon beside him, befuddled.
“I- umm… I don’t- know…”
Simon rests his arm on the table.
“Look, my ride isn’t going to be here for a little bit, with it being a last minute call, and I would feel terrible if I, yknow… just left you here eating all night. So why not speed it up a little? You would have technically ate all the food, right?”
Rob looked at the table. All the food sitting there would take all night to eat, and really did want to get home.
“Umm… o-okay. Let’s do it.”
Simon smiled.
“It’ll be over before you know it!”
Simon said, as he grabbed a plate of onion rings and grabbed one with his other hand.
“Just open wide!”
Rob did just that, and Simon began shoveling in the onion rings. Simon was in fact right, as with Simon’s help, Rob finished the entire plate In half the time he would have by himself, as he and Simon stuffed them into his mouth. Rob could feel his uniform get tighter with each meal he ate. He wasn’t a huge fan (pun intended) of his job, but doing it with someone did make it feel a little better. He ate and ate, feeling his stomach get tighter with each plate he cleared. His belly wobbling as he scarfed it all down.
“Final thing!” Simon exclaimed, as he held up an untouched milkshake.
Rob heaved for a few seconds from all the food that just entered his gut, and he looked at the milkshake.
“Alright.” Rob stated, with new confidence.
Simon put the glass to Rob's lips, and he began guzzling it down.
gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.
Simon set down the empty glass on the table with the other cleared plates. Not a crumb of the food hadn’t gone down Rob’s gullet.
“We did it!” Simon exclaimed to Rob, a warm smile on his face.
Rob also smiled, not as cheerfully as Simon, as a meal fit for a party of 4 was just stuffed in his stomach.
“Yaaayyy…” he said, weekly.
Simon patted Rob gently on the back, as not to disturb his meal.
“T-Thank you… sir.” Rob muttered in between labored breaths.
“You can call me Simon. Did I not say my name?”
Rob looked over at Simon.
“I don’t believe you-“
A concerning face spawned on Rob.
“You alright?” Simon asked, as Robs face grew more uncomfortable, as if he was trying to force something away. Rob, didn’t have the strength to resist however, as he let out a howling-
“UUUUuurrrrppPPPPP!”
Rob looked horrified, before snapping his head away from Simon.
“Oh- I’m I- I’m-“
“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Simon interrupted.
“I’ve heard way worse from those… friends… of mine who left this mess for you.”
Rob, still embarrassed, turns his head back to Simon.
“Well, since your done, you can finally get ho-
“ROB!”
A tall, toned man in his 60s appeared at the table.
It was Rob’s boss.
“I saw what you did, Rob.” He said, sternly, with a grizzled look.
“Boss! I was- He- I ate- we-“
Before he could even think, his boss slammed his hands on the table.
“That was…
The fastest I’ve ever seen you clear a table.”
Rob looked at him in awe.
“R-Realy?”
“Yes! I don’t know what you did random guy, but if you ever need a job, you can call me! I’d save so much money on trash bags!” He said giddily. He looked back at Rob.
“Good work Rob. If I wasn’t saving up for a yacht, I’d give a raise…. Also you can go home now.”
He rose from the table, gave them a confirming look, and strolled out the building.
Simon and Rob stared blankly at each other.
Simon looked to the window.
“Oh! my rides here. I gotta go…” Simon grabbed his coat and kept from his seat.
“It was nice meeting you.” Simon said as he began to make his way towards the exit.
“It was… nice meeting you too.”
Rob paused for a moment.
“If you ever want to, talk… or something… I’ll probably be here.”
Simon stopped at the door, and looked to Rob. He smiled, before rushing out th door.
Rob sat there as Simon left. Feeling a feeling he hadn’t really felt before.
“Probably indigestion” he thought.