Droplets of eager sweat beads began to cultivate upon oozing, wrinkled foreheads, just above the furrowed brow line, and with each stress induced pulsation, budded yet another waxed, baldhead from a widened, dirt-incrusted pore. Many of these agape patches of darkened, sun-damaged skin reside above a gaunt upper lip, nestled between seedlings of darkened brown-black facial hair follicles, where each one struggles for that rare occasional breath just before their mouths become flooded with bitter seawater. The swirling salt pools eagerly evaporate, thrusting their liquid bodies into the polluted air, which is intoxicated by waves of pungent humidity, and the clamor of metal-clanging clutter.

As I inhale, my tongue becomes constrained by the surrounding stagnant, swampy air, leaving a stinging sensation in-between each sliming, reddish bump, which oddly resemble fragile rosebuds, with their pinkish flesh and unopened eyes. The heads of naked droplets took refuge at the corners of my squinted lids in attempt to outflow from the relentlessly firing retinas. I stressfully wrap my fingers around the back of my craned neck, making a slapping sound against my saturated skin, which no longer is the foundation for beaded pools, but now has developed a thin, tight layer of sour sweat,. I outstretch my sopping neck, taking notice to the fact that the building’s Budget Bob’s installed air conditioner had evidently given it’s last breath of cool, minty oxygen. The last ounce of hope relied upon a K Mart supplied fan, with three furiously churning blades, which only appeared to succeed not at dispelling the mid-summer heat waves, but feeding the tangled atmosphere of a chaotic room.

I had only been in the kitchen long enough to hold a single breath, and already, my ears had become deafened, and all but the scraping sounds of metal against glass were inaudible. My helpless hearing had been strangled by the shrieking cries of rusted forks, and saliva coated plates. The air was polluted by the repetitive rattling of spoons inside lipstick-stained glasses, clattering as quickly as teeth on a December morning, due to the shakiness of coffee-hyped hands; alongside, the motor-boat dish washer, which creates howling bellows only performed by the largest, heftiest of men, and lastly, the ear splitting, most detested of echoes, the scratching of small daggers on greasy plates. The racket steadily remains constant (counting in eighth notes) and never fails to followed by the crash amongst other half-licked dishes, awaiting to be scrubbed and scratched yet again. However, the sound becomes rhythmic, poetic almost, synchronizing to the hurried heartbeats of the puffy eyed men and tired-skinned women scurrying around the enclosed, bucketing, area.

Peering upward, my eyes immediately begin to race along with each illuminated, parrot-colored button down uniform. The array of loud-mouthed fuchsias, subtle indigos, and stone-faced blacks form a kaleidoscope of movement, almost choreographed with the scrape symphony, as if each bold color was given a certain motion, another, the opposite. Not once did a purple collide with a black, nor the occasional pink. Viewing the extravaganza, one could assume that each pattern were oddly memorized, conflicting, but synchronized along with one another; it appeared to be a traditional wedding dance, performed by religious foreigners. This ritual remains constantly active for several hours, with the occasional oily body swinging themselves into the flying “IN” and “OUT” doors. However, at most occurrences, other broken structured figures, similar to the last mindlessly replace their partners’ role in the eternal dance number.

My relentlessly stinging eyes follow stomping footsteps of a misshapen, splotchy skinned blob, whose figure appeared to have finally collapsed due to countless hours of treachery, and selfishly indulging into deep fried tortillas. The unflattering dress shirt had faded from vibrant, rainforest macaw to molded, speckled peach, and revealed unthreaded holes beneath the underarms, where her sticky perspiration seeped between, and marked the rounded edges with darkened, sodden pink stains, which broadened with every rapid, short step, two for my one, made by stubby, cottage-cheese embedded legs. At this instance, I trace alongside her jiggling arms, down to the tip of pruned, lacerated fingertips, nails flaking with hard labor and negligence. Quickly, I lose sight of the Twinkie-shaped body parts, which become practically invisible alongside other rapid, whitewashed blurs of other sweat-incrusted hands and fingers. Some appear youthful, with acrylic nails carefully jeweled and decorated to match the bold peacock uniforms, some resemble that of a man himself, with dirt and cement beneath short, bitten nails, while others obviously belong to chore enduring mothers, used to scold naughty children, and clean up the messes of finger-paint and spit up.

A group of sun-tanned ladyfingers outstretch themselves to grasp at an orange-yellow, scalding plate, bubbling with beads of moisture along the rim. The dish was sloppily, and hurriedly mushed together by a half-awake, English impaired cook, whose wringing feet, and squirming toes, hold a foundation atop a grimy pile of mashed refried beans, lumped together with whatever loosely held pig-trough scraps fell from his ungloved, callused palms. The high school drop-out of a waitress precedes to hastily snatch at the deformed object, hardly identifiable due to a coat of brown-red enchilada sauce, which is beginning to produce a wrinkling skin layer, with bubbling warts along the edges. Mistakenly, her boney, fumbling fingers slip into the black seeded refried beans, then, burning with an instant fire, she retracts her shocked thumb, swirls it between flaking, chapped lips coated with 99 cent lip gloss (which is also partially on her crooked, yellow-grey smokers teeth), and with a flick of gurgling saliva from her hairy, tobacco tongue, and accidently back inside the tainted beans once again.
Nearly a minute has inched itself around the looming face of the black and white clock, and my ears have already transformed the buzzing of waitresses, and sheering of metal into a deep, permanent ringing buried, and bellowing within my numbed drums. The slight queasiness at the pit of my once rumbling stomach has escalated, and migrated upwards into my lightened head, similar to the feeling of holding your eyes at a cross for too long. As I turned my head for the nearest escape, I strained my color-faded eyes to make out the red lettering above the door. “OUT” I read, with the corners of the sign fading into the grayness of stainless steel. Immediately, my instincts awoke, Hair raised, lip bitten, I push aside the only obstacle between me, and the reassurance modern civilization.

Suddenly, I am enveloped by the kisses of technologically chilled air, which un-knitted my cooling sweated brow. The once popping veins finally had been introduced to a state of nirvana, while my eyes were finally making amends with depth perception and the natural colorations of my surrounding objects. I rotate myself a complete 360 degrees and observe the charming faces surrounding me. I wipe the mildewed strands of hair from my forehead, and released an exasperating sigh, followed by a chortle of disbelief. There were men, women, children even, laughing about a round, friendly table, indulging themselves in a delightful Mexican meal, enjoying a delightful family outing.