Sara’s Reviews > The Emperor of Gladness > Status Update

…so that they would come to know the sound of each others coughs and exhales better then those of their kin and loved ones. They who owe each other nothing but time, the hours collectively shouldered into a shift so that they might finish on time, now brought to their knees in a forest to gather around a half-burnt headrest of a Nissan Maxima on a Tuesday in mid-April,…

This sums it up:
“These people, bound by nothing but toil in a tiny kitchen that was never truly a kitchen,paid just above minimum wage, their presence known to each other mostly through muscle memory, the shape of their bodies ingrained in the psyche from hours of periphery maneuvering through the narrow counters and back rooms of a fast food joint designed by a corporate architect,