No one told Tyler Martin that pursuing his noble quest would cost him everything. His friends, his job… even his humanity.
Perhaps he should have known better. Great men and women throughout history sacrificed everything for their greatness. Tyler could have… should have stepped back from the depths of obsession years ago, but now his mission was his entire life.
Everyone told him it was impossible, but Tyler knew he would achieve the ‘impossible’. Tyler would be the first human being to ever eat an entire El Grande Gigante Burrito in under thirty minutes, rewarding him with free food at Sombrero’s Mexican Restaurant for the rest of his natural life.
The behemoth burrito—over a hundred pounds of deliciousness, wheeled out to a few brave customers in a wheel barrow—was his white whale, his lone goal in life. And he dedicated himself to the completion of his task completely.
His bedroom walls were plastered with burrito related research materials, potential strategies from hot dog eating contest champions, and newspaper clippings of people who had finished similar, if smaller, burrito challenges around the world.
“Hey Tyler!” his girlfriend Amanda called as she rounded the corner into the bedroom. “I’m late for work, have you seen my—”
She froze as she took in the sight of her boyfriend, wrapping himself in a giant tortilla blanket, topped with real lettuce, tomato, and half a dozen other ingredients balancing on his head.
“What the hell are you doing, Tyler?”
“To beat the burrito... I must become the burrito,” Tyler replied solemnly as he stared into a full length mirror.
“Jesus Christ…” Amanda muttered, more sadness than frustration present in her voice. “You’ve really and truly lost it, haven’t you?”
In silence, Tyler stared at her, madness in his eyes, and subtly licked his lips.
“Annnnnd you’re hallucinating me as a giant, walking, talking burrito. Aren’t you?” the human sized burrito standing before Tyler said.
“What? No!” Tyler lied. “But… could I take just like a tiny bite from your top left corner, Amanda? Your tortilla looks so delicious and freshly wrapped that I—”
“That’s it!” Amanda cried. “I’m… I’m sorry Tyler, but we’re done. I can't take this anymore. You love that stupid burrito more than you love me!”
“Oh, babe, no!” Tyler protested. “That’s not remotely burrito… I burrito you very very much, my darling burrito.”
Amanda stared at him for a long, awkward moment. “Goodbye Tyler. I’ll be back to collect my things tomorrow. In the meantime, I still care about you, so please… seek help.”
Tyler took Amanda’s advice and sought help with his burrito obsession in the form of a trip to his favorite burrito restaurant. As he stepped through Sombrero’s front door, the entire staff greeted him by name.
The owner, Hector was working the register this afternoon. He suppressed a grimace as Tyler approached the counter.
“Heyyyy, Tyler…” he said apprehensively. “Dare I ask what I can do for you toda—”
In a flash, Tyler slapped a crisp hundred dollar bill on the countertop. “One El Grande Gigante burrito, por favor.”
“Oh dios mio, not again...” Hector muttered, his face falling into his palm. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Tyler, you’ve been my best customer for a decade. I care for you like a somewhat obsessed, sorta creepy son. But I can’t keep letting you throw your life savings away! The El Grande Gigante is a novelty challenge meant to get tourists spending some extra cash as a fun little lark. Yannow, they can put it on Instagram, laugh about how they almost finished half in thirty minutes, and it gets us a little extra exposure? It’s meant to be impossible. I never expected a regular customer to attempt it over and over and over and—”
Tyler slid the hundred closer to Hector and tapped on it forcefully. “I’ll be at my usual table.”
Twenty minutes later, Hector and one of his chefs wheeled the wheelbarrow full of burrito to Tyler. Grunting under the weight, they lifted it onto his table, which groaned with protest under the massive weight.
“Alright,” Hector sighed, “your thirty minutes starts… now.”
Tyler dug into the El Grande Gigante like a man possessed, devouring layers of tortilla, rice, beans, chicken, carnitas, and carne asada with ease. He sped through the layer of fries and nacho cheese sauce, usually the section he found toughest to swallow, with ease. Even the dozens of hot sauces and salsas couldn’t slow his pace, normally he’d have to break for sips of water to tame the heat just slightly, but today he never even reached for his glass.
Even as his stomach filled beyond the point of bursting, he did not falter or slow his pace.
This quest had cost him everything, his friends, his job, and most recently his amazing, loving girlfriend of three wonderful years. He had nothing left to lose.
With three full minutes left on the clock, he reached for another bite, and chomped at nothing but air. He stared down at his bare plate and empty hands, dumbfounded. “I… I did it?”
Hector’s jaw hung open. “You… you did it…” He examined his best customer’s plate once more. “You freakin' did it!”
The restaurant exploded in applause, patrons and employees alike celebrating the completion of the impossible challenge. Hector yanked Tyler to his feet, lifting him off his feet in a bear hug of pure, genuine exuberance.
“Thanks, Hector!” Tyler said as Hector squeezed him, shaking from side to side. “But I’m literally, ugh, gonna explode if you keep this up. Urghhh, oh god... I wish I could skip the part where this sits in my stomach like thousands of delicious rocks.”
“Sorry, sorry!” Hector set him down. “I can’t help but celebrate, considering—”
Suddenly, time stopped around Tyler. Hector and everyone else in the restaurant froze in place, unmoving, unblinking.
“A most impressive feat, truly,” a strange voice warbled from behind him.
Tyler wheeled around to find an 8 foot tall man, outlined by an shimmering, ethereal golden glow.
“Who the hell… what the…” Tyler sputtered.
“Take a deep breath,” the stranger said, “Relax... I am Allerian, you might regard me as an ‘angel’ or ‘demon’ in your mortal parlance, and I mean you no harm. In fact, I am here to tell you of your reward for your incredible achievement.”
“I’ve got free food for life from my favorite restaurant,” Tyler replied, apprehensive. “What more could you possibly offer me that would—”
“How are you feeling?” the being asked. “Bursting at the seams a moment ago, dreading your next several days spent in a bathroom? But now…?”
The weight in Tyler’s gut vanished. “What the hell?” he muttered.
Allerian smiled. “You have been granted great power in keeping with the great task you have completed. No matter how much Mexican food you consume, you shall not feel fullness, gas, bloating, or discomfort.”
“Holy shit!" Tyler's eyes widened in realization. "Unlimited food at my favorite restaurant is literally going to mean unlimited food. Yes! This is the greatest day of my life!”
Tyler celebrated by pumping his fist in the air. At the apex of his final thrust, a gout of blinding orange flame shot from his hand, landing on and incinerating his favorite table.
“What the fuck!” Tyler shouted.
“What the fuck?!” the immortal being concerningly echoed.
“What was that?!” Tyler wailed. “Why would you give me the power to shoot fireballs n’ shit without telling me!”
“I did no such thing!” Allerian replied. “You ate one El Grande Gigante burrito and you were granted one incredible power as reward, to consume as much food as you desire. That is the way the system has worked for all eternity, throughout time and spac—”
He stopped himself as Tyler began to levitate off the ground. “Angel-demon dude?” Tyler cried as he floated toward the ceiling. “Help!”
“Oh my heavens and hells above and below...” Allerian said as realization dawned on him.
“What?!”
“Your burrito was so stuffed full of so many different ingredients, all in such large quantities, that I fear you may have mistakenly been granted a power for each component you consumed.”
Gaining some semblance of control, Tyler levitated back down to the ground, and grinned.
“Why in god’s name are you smiling?” Allerian demanded.
“Because,” Tyler said, as happy as he’d been in years, “it’s gonna be hella fun to learn what else I can do…”
Part 2
Allerian the Herald did not understand the meaning of the word ‘hella’, but he understood the potentially dire ramifications of Tyler’s entire statement all too well. He’d been at this job long enough to see all manner of humans go mad with their newfound power, especially when granted to those who did not have an obvious use for it.
In Allerian’s experience, that was the true danger of humanity. In their hands, power without purpose was a dangerous combination.
Right on cue, Tyler began randomly levitating objects all around the restaurant with his mind. Tables, chairs, silverware and anything else he could spot swirled above their heads.
After zooming a fork around the restaurant like a kid with a toy plane for several minutes, he delicately maneuvered it under a fellow diners outstretched arm, tickling their armpit.
Tyler giggled to himself, giddy. “Are they gonna feel all the tickles at once when they wake up? Or is it like nothing at allll is happening right now for anyone but us?”
“I… err…” the immortal being mumbled in response, unsure of the answer himself.
As his title suggested, Allerian the Herald did not ‘grant’ these powers per se, as much as he informed humans of the power they had been granted by celestial forces beyond Allerian’s true understanding.
Luckily, Tyler didn’t know that.
“Halt this at once!” Allerian thundered, performing his best impression of a far more powerful immortal being. “There is… there will be punishment—punishments you could not conceive of—if you continue your use of powers that have been mistakenly granted to you. Graaaave punishment!”
A momentarily concerned expression swept across Tyler’s face, but only for a second, before he burst into laughter.
Allerian was thrown. “You dare mock the god’s… err, the god’s chosen implement?”
“Dude,” Tyler said, “you’re totally bullshitting.”
Unfortunately, Allerian knew that human word well enough for it to cause a grimace across his glowing face. “What ever do you mean, young Tyler?”
“I’m an amazing bullshit artist, it’s prolly like… in my top three skills, along with new meme creation and Mario Kart.” Tyler grinned. “And a good B.S. artist can always spot another one when he sees one. You’re way too obvious!”
With a sigh, Allerian replied, “Very well. It’s true, I cannot punish your use of the powers mistakenly granted to you. But my warning is also all too true, if you are found out, the consequences could be—”
Tyler cut him short with a massive bart, a simultaneous belch and fart, which spit a burst of flame from his mouth and backside. This was a fitting power, at least, given the gallons of hot sauce he’d just consumed.
“Whoa!” Tyler said. “I gotta try that again!”
With a blink of his eyes, he summoned a brand new burrito into existence. Though it wasn’t wheelbarrow sized, it looked extremely appetizing, perfectly rolled and stuffed full of delicious fillings, the platonic ideal of a burrito if Tyler had ever seen one.
He ripped into it with gusto, devouring a third of it in a single bite.
“Please,” Allerian begged, “for reasons both cosmic and olfactory, please do not devour that burrito. Another disgusting flame belch might bring me to my knees.”
Another fork swooped through the restaurant, coming to rest under Allerian’s armpit.
“So like, if you can smell stuff,” Tyler mumbled, his mouth still full, “then are you ticklish too, eternal angel dude?”
“Not an angel,” Allerian corrected. “And no, your fork twirling will have no effect on me. As for your fellow patrons and the employee’s of this establishment, I cannot say if—”
“No worries!” Tyler said. “I’ll figure it out for us.”
He closed his eyes tight and began to concentrate. The restaurant rattled and shook, walls and floor bending inward, bulging at impossible angles, beyond the laws of physics and demands of gravity.
Then, as Tyler’s eyes popped open, the structure bounced back into shape, resuming its rightful existence as four upright walls, perfectly perpendicular with the floor and ceiling. In that moment, the world unfroze, patrons and employee’s resuming their cheers for Tyler’s successful burrito challenge completion.
“—you’ve been working at this challenge for so long!” Hector said, concluding the praise he’d begun just before time froze. “I don’t care what the free food for life costs me, I’m so proud of you, Tyler!”
“Thank you, Hector. Thank you, so much...” Tyler replied, his voice becoming choked by genuine emotion. “Those are the words I’ve always longed to hear you say.”
“You got it, kid! I’m—” Hector cut himself short, scratching at his underarm while sniffing the air. “Why do I feel like I’ve been getting tickled by a feather? And why’s is suddenly smell so rancid in here?!”
Tyler winked to Allerian. “I dunno, Hector! But I’ll prop the front door open for some fresh air.”
As he opened the door, Allerian pulled Tyler aside.
“Time manipulation is a power reserved for immortal beings, how on Earth did you do that?!”
“Oh, hmm?” Tyler said as he blinked a brick into existence to prop open the front door. “I dunno, my dude! I just kinda… thought about it for a lil bit, then it happened?”
Allerian scoffed. “Impossible!”
“I dunno, mi amigo.” Tyler paused, summoning a brand new $400,000 Ferrari in the spot where his beat up, 20 year old Honda Civic had been. He hopped into the driver’s seat with a smile on his face. “With the righteous power of burrito flowing through my veins, nothing seems impossible anymore!”
He jammed on the accelerator, peeling out of the parking lot. As he screamed down the sleepy suburban road, the Ferrari suddenly sprouted wings and soared off into the clear blue sky.
His jaw on the floor, shocked and horrified that some mortal might have witnessed the car’s sudden transformation, Allerian shouted after Tyler, “Ferrari’s don’t fly! Come back here! Land, you fool! Before someone sees you!”
As the flying supercar faded from view, Allerian’s worst fears were confirmed: this burrito fueled idiot was indeed powerful... and reckless.
If power without purpose was as dangerous as he feared, Allerian would have no choice but to give him one.
____
To be continued... BUT this is not the start a new serial (as longtime readers know, I'm still working hard to get my current one back on track!) but I will conclude this with a Part 3 within the next 24 hours (Hopefully sooner! Just as soon as I have another hour or two of free writing time to finish it up 👍).
Sooo, yeah, check back on this sub or the original post over on Writing Prompts if you'd like to read the conclusion, and thanks for reading this far 🙂
Submitted October 02, 2021 at 02:06AM by Ryter99 https://ift.tt/2Y9QimZ
via Blogger https://ift.tt/39VxJVR
October 02, 2021 at 02:55AM
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