The Vision
They say the desert changes a man. They don't tell you that the desert is actually a giant, convection oven designed by a cruel god to dehydrate your soul until it's as brittle as a saltine cracker. It was 2024, the Year of the Great Cicada Scream, and I was hunkered down in a lean-to outside of Barstow, vibrating at a frequency only dogs and certain types of quartz can hear.
I was on a spiritual quest—or perhaps I was just hiding from a collection agency specializing in overdue library books. It's a fine line. My only companions were a cooling fan powered by a lemon battery and a deep-seated, existential hunger that smelled faintly of ballpark mustard.
“Shmeat.”
It happened during a particularly aggressive dust devil. As the sand whipped into a frenzy, I saw him: a spectral figure wearing a stained "Kiss the Cook" apron, riding a translucent weiner dog. He didn't speak. He simply pointed toward my propane camping stove and whispered a single, guttural syllable that sounded like “Shmeat.”
I realized then that the culinary world had become too soft. Too many microgreens. Too many deconstructed foams. We had forgotten the primal urge of the Pocket. But the standard ham-and-cheese pocket was a lie—a hollow promise of sustenance. I needed a verticality of flavor. I needed a tubular revolution.
I spent the next forty-eight hours in a fever dream of dough-kneading and casing-alignment. I was trying to solve the "Enigma of the Cylinder." How do you encapsulate the majesty of a processed meat link within the buttery, flaky embrace of a handheld pastry without losing the very essence of the snap?
When the first Dong Pocket emerged from the air fryer, the sky turned a bruised shade of purple. I took a bite, and for a brief moment, I could taste the future. It tasted like childhood, stadium seating, and a reckless disregard for sodium guidelines.
