Time After Time by Karl Alexander

the patrons seemed to arrive and leave in extremely short periods of time. The service must be incredible, he thought. Either that or the food eaten in 1979 must not take long to prepare or consume. He looked up at the sign. “McDONALD’s—Billions and Billions Served.”
    He entered the establishment and was surprised that it vaguely resembled the interior of a London restaurant in 1893, only everything was new and shiny. The wallpaper was a montage of printed old photographs and lithographed street scenes. Of course! The motif was San Francisco’s Barbary Coast of the nineteenth century. H.G. wondered what purpose the decor served, for there was no mood or atmosphere to the place. People were coming and going too quickly to remember what they’d eaten, in his opinion.
    He touched a brown tabletop, then a bright-orange swivel chair and marveled at their composition. It wasn’t wood or metal, yet it looked like both. What was the curious substance? He restrained himself from investigating further, for he looked up and saw people staring at him.
    He moved across the room and stood in a line, which seemed to be proper behavior if one wanted to eat. Then he looked at a translucent menu (curiously lit from behind—the reason escaping him) because that was what everyone else in the line was doing. He read the list of items sold, and the only three words that made any sense to him were “coffee,” “tea” and “milk.” He had no idea of what to purchase, so he listened to how the customers in front of him ordered their meals. After hearing five such exchanges, he slowly nodded, then frowned. Yes, the language was definitely English, but the idiom baffled him. What the devil were “quarter-pounders without”?
    When he got to the head of the line, he had memorized a previous
order and even correctly carried out the ritual of collecting three napkins and a straw, which he stuffed into his bedraggled coat pocket.
    â€œYes, sir, may I help you?” said the smiling counter girl dressed in a green- and white-striped outfit.
    Her clothes looked too bright and shiny to be wool or even cotton. He assumed that they were a different kind of fiber, perhaps derivative from the same glossy matter that covered the tables and chairs. Once again, he had to restrain himself. He wanted to reach out and feel the material.
    â€œI’d like a Big Mac and fries,” he said hesitantly.
    â€œAnything to drink?”
    â€œTea, please.”
    â€œHere or to go?”
    â€œHere.”
    He paid her with a twenty-dollar bill, humbly accepted his change and food, then escaped to a booth in the far corner of a room called “The Pirates’ Den.” He picked up a fry and nodded with familiarity. It was obviously a chip, and “fry” was the American derivation. But when he took a bite, he found that the fry tasted like undercooked dough. It was obviously not a chip, and he assumed that he had just eaten a wedge of protein, possibly manufactured from grass seed. He sipped his tea, weak by British standards, but warm and stimulating nonetheless. He regarded the tea bag as a clever little convenience—no more picking oolong leaves out of one’s teeth at embarrassing moments.
    On the seat beside him was the San Francisco Chronicle. He picked it up, jammed his mouth full of fries, then scanned a Herb Caen column which touted that the restaurants of San Francisco were superior to those of Modesto. He shook his head, dropped the paper and muttered with horror, “My God, what have they done to the English language?”

    He took his Big Mac out of its box, after concluding that the styrofoam was a rubberized paper manufactured to withstand weather extremes. Perhaps modern writers used sheets of it to ensure posterity. Then he unwrapped and studied the sandwich. The aroma overwhelmed him, but this was no time to be critical. He was famished. He chomped and chewed,