Three days into the job, Martin's hatred for the booth had crystallized like the ice patterns on the window. Snow piled higher, higher, highest outside, turning the highway into some stupid white wasteland no one with sense would drive on. Inside, the booth grew colder despite the space heater's valiant clicking, temperatures dropping to the point where his breath hung in the air like cartoon speech bubbles filled with nothing but complaints.

  "This place is such garbage," he muttered, spinning lazily in the vinyl chair that creaked under his weight. "Absolute frozen garbage."

  No internet. Still no internet. Day three of no scrolling, no videos, no connection to actual humans who weren't these random weirdos stopping for gas and cigarettes. Manager Todd—stupid Todd with his stupid rules and his stupid snowshoveling expectations—had promised the tech guys would check the tower "sometime this week," which meant absolutely nothing in Martin's experience with authority figures who clearly didn't care about his suffering.

  Time crawled, crawled, crawled like a wounded animal through the endless night shift. Martin's phone sat uselessly on the counter, battery at 97% because there was literally nothing to drain it. Offline games bored him after ten minutes. Photos had been scrolled through a hundred times. Notes app filled with increasingly angry messages about how much this job sucked, this booth sucked, this highway sucked.

  To fight the crushing boredom, Martin had developed a system of entertainment involving whatever objects were within reach. Tonight's game: balancing different items on his forehead while leaning back in the chair, seeing how long they'd stay before falling.

  Cigarette pack: seventeen seconds.

  Coffee cup (empty): three seconds.

  Stapler: immediate fail and small forehead bruise.

  "Personal best with the cigs," he announced to the empty booth, voice bouncing off metal walls that reflected nothing but his own stupidity back at him. "New record. Somebody call Guinness or whatever."

  Outside, snow continued its relentless assault, fat flakes swirling in the security lights like they were mocking him personally. The parking lot had disappeared under white blanket that grew thicker by the hour, erasing the boundaries between asphalt and surrounding fields until everything was just endless white nothing stretching forever.

  The wall clock ticked, ticked, ticked with painful slowness. Only 11:23 PM. Seven more hours of this frozen prison sentence.

  Martin's phone buzzed with an actual text message—the first excitement of the night. Pamela checking in during her hospital break.

  "How's work going? Staying warm? :heart:"

  He scowled at the heart emoji. So fake. So Pamela. Always pretending to care when they both knew their relationship was built on exactly two things: his looks and her desperation. Four months of dating, and Martin still couldn't figure out why a registered nurse would waste time with a high school dropout, except that he was, objectively, hot as hell and she was, objectively, not great at finding guys who treated her well.

  "freezing my ass off. no internet still. this place sucks."

  Her reply came quickly: "Sorry babe. Bring extra layers tomorrow. I'll drive you again. Break's over, ttyl :heart:"

  Martin didn't bother responding. Pamela would pick him up tomorrow morning and drop him off tomorrow night, just like she had yesterday and today, listening to his complaints with that irritating patient expression she used on difficult patients. Her silver Corolla would park as close to the booth as possible so he wouldn't have to walk far in the cold, because God forbid Martin Fischer experience any discomfort for any length of time.

  The door's hinges protested as the night manager pushed it open, cold air rushing in with him. Todd stamped his boots on the already-wet floor, sending slush spattering across the linoleum.

  "Fischer! Need you to shovel the walkway again. Snow's piling up."

  Martin's groan was loud enough to echo. "Seriously? I just did it like two hours ago."

  "And now there's another three inches. That's how snow works." Todd tossed a set of keys onto the counter. "Lock up if you need to step outside for a smoke after. Don't leave customers waiting."

  "Whatever," Martin muttered, each syllable dripping with adolescent disdain despite his twenty-six years of supposed adulthood.

  Todd paused at the door. "Oh, and the register was short fifteen bucks yesterday. Want to explain that?"

  Heat rose in Martin's face despite the cold. "I don't know. Maybe I gave wrong change or something. You should have trained me on that dinosaur."

  "It's basic math, Fischer."

  "Whatever. Not like I stole it."

  The manager sighed, breath fogging between them. "You are lucky it's too much hassle finding someone willing to work these hours in this location. But pay attention, alright? Job's not that hard."

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  That was the thing about being Martin Fischer—people always expected the bare minimum, and he still found ways to disappoint them. His mom with her endless "just graduate, that's all I'm asking" before he dropped out senior year. His string of bosses with their "just show up on time" before he got fired from one mindless job after another. Pamela with her "just be nice to my friends" before he ruined another dinner with his inability to fake interest in their boring lives.

  Todd left, door closing behind him with finality that felt like a prison cell clanging shut. Martin stared at the snow shovel leaning against the wall, its plastic blade still wet from last use, handle worn from countless booth attendants before him clearing the same stupid walkway that would just get covered again and again and again.

  "Screw that," he decided, turning back to his phone.

  Time passed. Snow accumulated. Martin ignored both.

  When headlights finally appeared through the white curtain falling outside, Martin barely looked up from his phone where he was playing the same offline game for the hundredth time. The customer—some trucker with a beard that needed serious trimming—tapped on the window with mittened hands.

  "Hey! You open? Need to pay for gas!"

  Martin slid the window open with obvious reluctance. "Yeah, whatever. Which pump?"

  "Four. Forty dollars." The man stamped his feet, snow falling from his boots. "Nasty night out here. They're saying another eight inches before morning."

  "Cool. Don't care." Martin punched buttons on the register with deliberate slowness. "Forty on four."

  The man's eyebrows rose slightly. "Customer service not really your thing, huh kid?"

  "Not really my thing, no." Martin held out his hand for payment, not bothering to look up. "Forty bucks."

  The transaction completed with minimal conversation, which was exactly how Martin preferred his limited human interactions. The trucker departed with a head shake that Martin pretended not to notice, taillights disappearing into the swirling white darkness that surrounded the booth like some frozen ocean.

  Alone again, Martin returned to his chair, to his boredom, to his slow-motion suffering in this arctic prison cell of employment. The snow shovel continued its silent judgment from the corner.

  Outside, the walkway disappeared under fresh powder that piled higher with each passing minute. Inside, Martin Fischer slouched deeper into his inadequacy, his laziness, his complete disregard for responsibility.

  He pulled a pack of cards from his jacket pocket—one ancient form of entertainment that didn't require charging—and began the forty-seventh game of solitaire that night, cards slapping against counter with rhythm that matched the clock's endless ticking.

  Red on black. Black on red. Monotonous rules for monotonous game in monotonous booth on monotonous highway.

  The night stretched ahead, long and cold and empty.

  Time crawled. Snow fell. Nothing mattered.

  Martin's next brilliant entertainment innovation involved throwing coins at the wall, trying to make them land in specific cracks between metal panels. Quarters made satisfying pinging sounds. Nickels less so. Dimes were practically worthless for this purpose, like for actual currency use.

  "Three points," he announced to no one as a quarter landed perfectly in the seam between panels. "New high score."

  The booth's small radio crackled with static-filled weather alerts about road conditions and travel advisories that Martin ignored completely. Who cared about other people struggling to drive in this mess? Who cared about anything beyond the crushing boredom of this frozen box?

  Headlights appeared again—another customer braving the storm for whatever sad emergency required gas station supplies at midnight during a blizzard.

  Middle-aged woman. Puffy coat. Impatient expression as Martin slowly, slowly, so slowly opened the service window.

  "Coffee, please. Large. And a pack of those mini donuts."

  Martin stared at her like she'd asked him to solve quantum equations. "Coffee machine's over there. Help yourself."

  "Isn't that your job?" The woman's eyebrows rose expectantly.

  "Ugh, fine."

  He shuffled to the machine, movements deliberately sluggish, making sure every action communicated how much he resented performing this basic function of his employment. The coffee pot was nearly empty, liquid sludgy from sitting on the warmer for hours. Martin poured it anyway, not bothering to make a fresh pot.

  "Here." He thrust the cup toward the woman, some of the liquid sloshing over the rim onto the counter. "Donuts are on the rack. Three bucks."

  The woman accepted the coffee, took one sip, and grimaced. "This is freezing cold."

  "Yeah, everything's freezing in here. Big surprise." Martin rolled his eyes with theatrical exaggeration. "Want me to microwave it or whatever?"

  "No, I want fresh coffee. Like any paying customer would expect."

  Martin's sigh was so dramatic it fogged the air in front of his face. "Fine. Whatever."

  He dumped the old coffee, made a fresh pot with movements that screamed inconvenience, and slammed the new cup on the counter. "Anything else? Or can I go back to slowly dying of boredom now?"

  The woman's expression hardened. "You know, a little courtesy wouldn't kill you."

  "Might though. Not willing to risk it."

  She paid exactly the amount owed, not a penny more, and left without another word. Martin returned to his coin-throwing game, unconcerned with the impression he'd made, unconcerned with anything beyond his own immediate discomfort in this frozen wasteland of employment.

  Three more customers that night. Three more opportunities for Martin to demonstrate his comprehensive incompetence as a cashier, a service worker, and a human being.

  Wrong change given to an old man buying cigarettes.

  Soda instead of energy drink for teenager who specified flavor three times.

  Complete ignorance of where road maps were kept when trucker asked for directions.

  Each interaction worse than the last. Each customer leaving with lower opinion of booth service than they arrived with. Each minute stretching longer as boredom crushed Martin's skull between invisible, freezing hands.

  The snow continued falling outside, piling higher against windows, against door, against Martin's will to perform even the most basic functions of his job. The walkway remained unshoveled, snow accumulating beyond acceptable levels, creating safety hazard Todd would definitely comment on tomorrow.

  Martin Fischer, twenty-six years old, high school dropout, third night of job he already hated, freezing in booth with no internet, no entertainment, nothing but long hours of nothing stretching ahead like highway buried under snow no one would drive on anyway.

  The space heater clicked, clicked, clicked against cold it couldn't defeat.

  The wind howled, howled, howled against walls too thin to keep it out.

  The snow fell, fell, fell without purpose, without end, without mercy.

  And Martin waited for something, anything to happen in the endless, frozen night.