I woke up feeling groggy and disoriented, because that’s what happens when you’ve been at work until 2 AM, got home after three, and then some asshole wakes you up at DAWN. I sat up - on a bit of a tilt, I admit - and tried to glare.
The androgynous person with the wild curls, brilliant smile, and faint glow around them didn’t seem to care. “Hail, Jenna! I congratulate thee on thy elevation to godhood!”
I stared at them for a second, then managed a semi-comprehensible mumble. “Wha?”
“Thou art a newly ascended goddess, and I am sent to bid thee congratulations and well-wishing!” The smile got even brighter. Whoever… whatever… this person was, they were abso-fucking-lutely delighted about this wonderful news. “I must away, for I am a busy messenger, but we twain shall meet again!”
And then the bright figure was gone and I was left sitting there, still half asleep and fully bewildered. After a second, I tried speaking again. “… goddess of WHAT?”
I lay back and tried to convince myself it was all just a dream, but… it wasn’t. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but not this time. Some glowing, jolly … being… had woken me up at the asscrack of dawn, told me I was a goddess, and then left.
I would have decided that it was a hallucination, I think, except that as I lay there, I realised slowly that even though I’d been asleep for maybe a couple of hours, I wasn’t tired. I really, genuinely wasn’t tired. It’s been so long since I wasn’t tired that it took me a while to even identify what was going on. And nothing hurt. Not my back, my shoulders, my knees, my hands… nothing.
I got out of bed and looked down at myself. I still looked the same, as far as I could tell. Medium build with a bit of middle-aged sag, scars on my hands from decades of kitchen work, the pallor of someone who spends all their time working nights, and the same ratty nightshirt I’d gone to sleep in. I went over to the mirror to check my face, and that was the same too. Lined, pale, with sharp eyes and a thin mouth, framed in slightly greyed brown hair. Ordinary. Not the face of a goddess.
But I wasn’t tired. Nothing hurt. In fact… I felt great.
Figuring I might as well ride the weird rush while I had it, I went to make myself an early breakfast… and a proper breakfast, too, with scrambled eggs and bacon as well as toast and coffee. I sat down to eat at my battered old kitchen table, and tried to think.
Obviously I wasn’t, like, capital G God, or anything. That would have presumably involved more fanfare than a single cryptic messenger. And they’d said ‘a’ goddess, not ‘the’ anything. And they’d used my name, so I wasn’t newly appointed as one of the gods anyone had heard of.
So… goddess of… something, I guess? One of those minor deities that accrued around stronger pantheons, or in isolated places. Like how little European villages in the middle of forests accumulated forest gods, or island countries picked up gods of seas and streams and stuff. I really hoped that was it. That level of godhood was something I could just about comprehend. Maybe I was the goddess of something really minor, like aglets, or deep-frying. I am really good at getting a balky deep-fryer to behave.
I really hoped that was it. I thought I could just about cope with becoming the goddess of deep-fryers, or pancakes, or something. That seemed like a… a manageable amount of divinity.
It felt strange being awake all day before work, and I did try to nap, but I just wasn’t sleepy. I tried, and ten minutes later I was standing in the kitchen again, mixing a batch of cookie dough. Baking helped - it kept me busy, at least.
It was a relief when I could head to work. I’ve worked six days out of seven at the Blue Plate Diner for the last fifteen years, and been part-owner for the last six. That kitchen was as much my home as my shabby apartment, if not more so.
I went in early, and sent Rio the day cook home. He looked exhausted, and was grateful to have his shift cut a little short, especially since I promised to pay him for the hour regardless. The day waitresses greeted me, though we don’t know each other well - I never work days - and Stanley the sous was there already.
I walked into my kitchen and immediately felt better. This was what I’d wanted, I realized, what my apartment kitchen hadn’t been able to give me. My kitchen, my domain… every inch familiar, every dish known by heart.
And then… I knew. I felt it.
I could feel the heat of a million grills. The bubble of a million fryers. And the prayers… oh, the prayers. A great silent roar of prayers that the orders would be right, that the rush would end, that the pizza wouldn’t burn and the fries would cook quickly. The pleas for endurance, for patience, for enough tips to get by, for a good smiting for a shitty customer.
Oh, I’m definitely going to be doing a lot of smiting when I figure out how.
I am the goddess of short-order cooking. And here in my kitchen, in the very seat of my power, I could do anything.
Stanley yelped and jumped back as my eyes snapped open, and I could see them glowing in my reflection on the grimy window. And then I did what every cook, whether they admit it or not, has always wanted to do. I raised my hands and I woke my kitchen up like a goddamn Disney magician.
Utensils flew on their own to their tasks. The fryer bubbled, blorped, and cleaned itself in one swift shudder, hocking out a lump of unknowable black ick into the nearest garbage can. The fridge opened itself so a dozen eggs could float out and over to the right station. I looked the other way, and the walk-in freezer popped open, spitting out two dozen rolls ready to be thawed. Sauces refilled themselves with a glance. A fry basket filled itself and put itself down in the cleanly gleaming oil. Oh, yeah. This is my domain. My temple. Here, my will is all.
Stanley was still staring, open-mouthed, and I grinned at him. “I became a goddess today.”
He stared at me, eyes popping, and then he slowly grinned back. “If anyone was gonna be a kitchen goddess, you’re it. No doubt.”
I didn’t just stand there and watch the magic cooking. I’m a cook. I use my hands, always. But now it was like I had a hundred, a thousand more hands. Like I could see every inch of the kitchen, all the time.
And not just mine, either. While I grilled steaks and burgers, made salads and fixed milkshakes, my awareness expanded out further and further. Blocks away, a nervous kid at McDonalds stumbled and tried to catch himself, and I steadied him before his hand went into the deep-fryer. A woman at a food cart, out of napkins, prayed and found a package that hadn’t been there a moment before. An over-worked pizza chef got their second wind and three simple orders in a row. Food didn’t burn, orders didn’t go wrong, soft-serve machines unclogged and coffee-machines purred obediently. I was aware of all of it, doing all of it, and yet I was still fully aware of my own kitchen, my own diner, of every order going out in record time and the food being better than anything than even I’d ever managed before. I didn’t get tired… in fact, the longer I was in my kitchen, the better I felt.
By the end of the night, Stanley was a fervent believer, as were both the waitresses. I couldn’t hear their prayers quite as clearly as those of actual cooks, but counter staff and wait staff seem to come under my protection too, if they’re in one of ‘my’ restaurants. I tested my limits… anything that could be called short-order cooking seemed to be it. Fast-food, diners, and the like, mostly. Food carts that served hot food were mine, but dessert places of all descriptions weren’t. Bakeries and cafes were both off my list, and I could feel - I can’t explain how - that they belonged to different gods. Fine dining restaurants were outside my purview, and most delis, but anywhere with a deep-fryer or a grill lit up in my mind’s eye.
Closing up was a lot easier when the kitchen had become self-cleaning, so Stanley helped out in the front of the diner. Then we headed home. When I got back to the apartment, I wasn’t tired at all… I felt better than I ever have, charged by contact with my temple and my mostly unknowing believers. Turns out that gods - even minor ones - don’t need sleep to recharge, which is certainly a nice perk.
So that’s me. Jenna, the Short-Order Goddess. The Lady of the Grills. Patron of the Order Window. I have nothing to do with coffee. That’s someone else’s domain. But from the chain burger to the corner chippie, I watch over the kitchens and the staff of them all. They are my people, and I will care for them.
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