Pizza Palace

Have you ever noticed how cathartic grating cheese can be?  The action of removing cheese from the block into a much bigger mountain. At the restaurant we use a machine. No sore arm but a satisfying grumbly rumble.

I’ve worked here at the Pizza palace for six months, and if it wasn’t for my crippling debt, I wouldn’t be here.  I would then not be able to tell the story of the Brazenorth restaurant. Why do people choose to go for pizza rather than a Chinese?  Italian food verses Chinese verses Indian.

Tonight was the same as any other, until it wasn’t.

Quiet couples are common here, ordinary people just passing through. Tonight’s visitors were not the norm.   As I stood listening to the grumble of the cheese grinder, I sensed a hush descend over the restaurant.  The normal hum of customers was silenced, something was wrong.

The visitors

Opening the door to the restaurant I saw them. A man, tall, maybe 7ft, wearing a red cape which dragged along the floor and high black leather boots.  With him, four men all carrying swords.  They looked like they had come from the theatre, but from the stunned look on their faces, something was obviously very wrong.

As another waiter dealt with the shocked customers, some fearful at the sight of the swords.  I spoke with our new guests.  Not expecting a sudden history lesson and then having to take action that I’ve never had to take before.

Not recognising their language, it was another customer who worked out that they were Vikings.  Able to understand old Scandinavian Norse, he interpreted that they had just walked off a Scandinavian battlefield in 900AD and appeared in 2025. Vikings in a pizza restaurant.

As Betty bought them food, free of course, Vikings would not be carrying credit cards or money.  I listened to their leader, William and history professor Stephen Clark.

As the customers finished their meals we put the closed sign on the door. They were all to go straight home as not sure what forces were in play tonight, how did this happen? somehow, we needed to get these Vikings home.  Thankfully they were not about to harm us, they were too confused.

900 AD

Things now got worse.  As the Phillips family opened the door another Viking ran in.  The street was gone; we were literally in the middle of a battlefield.  A pizza restaurant in 900 AD.  Inside it was 2025, the ovens and electricity were all working fine.  Outside a whole different world. What has suddenly made us go back in time?

I’ve read the books and watched the films, but nothing could prepare us for this.   As Stephen asked the questions it evolved that the Vikings had found a box with buttons on.  They hadn’t known what it was, and a feud had started because if it.  The box had been put in the charge of William who now produced it from his cloak.

This was advanced technology, maybe not even from the 21^st century.   Somehow this box had pulled a 21^st century pizza restaurant into 900AD. This was dangerous, too much could go wrong,

So, here we are, Vikings, a history professor and a group of pizza workers.  The customers were being quietly entertained but they were becoming increasingly anxious.

Things now got very weird.   As a man in a suit walked out of the kitchen. Things couldn’t get any stranger.  His first question was what year are we in?

Yes, another time traveller.

“Inside it is 2025 and outside 900 AD”

An explanation

I was not surprised when our new visitor produced another box.  Identical to William’s.

“I am Martin Chubb, a scientist from the 24^th century, these boxes were an experiment, and it has gone very wrong.   We had a set of ten of them, then one night there was an incident at the lab and five went missing.   It looks like they have been thrown through the time vortex, have you seen one of these boxes before tonight?”

A small boy, maybe seven, now spoke.

“Sir, err, I found this a few days ago, I didn’t think it was anything”.

He produced a third box from his pocket.

“Did you push any buttons?”

“Well yes, sorry Sir.”

“Could I please have your box?”  The child passed him the box and then went back to his parents.

So, this was it. Time boxes sent back in time to other centuries.  We now had three, so two are still missing.  It evolved that Ben had pushed buttons while eating his dinner tonight. The Vikings had also been pushing buttons, these actions brought the two boxes together and the restaurant was hurled back to 900 AD.

A rescue

“Now I need the Vikings to go outside otherwise you will be taken to the 21^st century, but please I must have your time box”.  The men got up, not wanting to leave their families.  They thanked us in Old Norse and left.

Martin now pushed more buttons and soon we found ourselves back where we should be.  Opening the door there was the usual street, things were back as they should be.  As Martin took back the boxes, he thanked us. With two more to find, I wondered where in time and space they are.

The future sounds like an interesting place. If they are experimenting with time travel in the 24^th century with a simple time box, what other inventions will there be?  Technology has evolved along way since 900 AD, those time boxes could be a big mistake in the wrong persons hands.  Not sure how I feel about that, I certainly don’t want my timeline rubbed out by someone changing the past or future.

Martin explained that he had an idea where the missing boxes are which is how he found us. However, the technology is far from perfected hence how we ended up time travelling tonight.

We all had a story to tell, and Ben will more careful now with any small things that he finds.  You don’t expect a small box with buttons to operate a time vortex!

As for me, I’m now wondering on my plan out of here.  Maybe I could see if there’s any jobs at the university, Science seems interesting.  I don’t want to spend my next few years grating cheese. It has been an interesting night, one that I don’t think my family are going to believe.  Well, it does sound a bit of a tall story.  Vikings, scientists and time boxes, yes who will believe that?

A new job

It was a few months later that the university contacted me. Stephen had spoken to a friend in the Science department about me and told him the story of the pizza restaurant.   It was now that I embarked on a new life.  Starting as an assistant, but I am keen. So much to learn and explore, I was grateful for this opportunity.

Funny how things work out.  An incident with time boxes in the 24^th century which could have meant disaster.  Now here I was in a fulfilling job that I enjoyed with people who were curious to hear my story.  I still wonder whether Martin found the two missing time boxes, I’m assuming that I will never know, unless I am pulled into another time vortex in the future, yes that would be interesting.

Written for Writers Unite – Write the story

for more see A fork in the road