This is a response to the Muse on Monday prompt for January 26, 2026: Write a story where the character finds something in their food

The Key to Life

I find that the key to life is to go with the flow. Sure, you can plan things out, but life will just happen if you let it. The Universe will guide you to where it wants you to be.

I was eating dinner by myself at a diner called Jimmy’s Buffett. It’s not a buffet, and the name might just have a typo, but the food is good. I was cutting into my chicken when I heard a metallic clink. That’s never a good sign when cutting into food, I’ve found.

Pushing the chicken aside, I saw that there was a key underneath it, half-submerged in the mushroom gravy. There was a piece of masking tape stuck to it with the words back door, 1am written in Sharpie. The key had the logo for Jimmy’s Buffett on it.

I mused over the meaning of this as I kept eating, trying not to think of where the key had been. It never occurred to me to tell the waitress. If the Universe wanted me to have a key and show up here at 1am, that was fine by me.

That night, I drove back to Jimmy’s Buffett and parked down the street. I had the key in my pocket. I went around back.

“Luis, is that you?” a voice whispered out of the darkness.

“Naw, my name is Tyler,” I said. “I got a key in my food this evening. Said to come here at 1am. Which is now.”

“You got the key?” A woman came out of shadows into the faint moonlight. I recognized her as my waitress from that evening. “Oh no! That was supposed to go to Luis. I wondered why he kept glaring at me. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I just thought I was meant to have it,” I said. “So, what’s the plan?”

She hesitated. “My boss has been stealing from my tips for months,” she said. “Luis was going to help me break in and steal back what I’m owed. I didn’t want to get caught with the key, so I was going to smuggle it to Luis.”

“Well, I’m here now,” I said. “You still want to rob the place?” She looked kind of surprised, but hey, if the Universe wanted to make me into a 21^st century Robin Hood, I was up for it.

I opened the back door, and we sneaked in through the kitchen. The waitress, whose name was Alba, said the money would be in the office. We went back there and started searching. We found a bunch of financial documents but no actual money.

Then we found a safe at the back of the office and were fiddling around with it when the lights came on and the police stepped into the office. The Universe taught me a lot that night, including the concept of a silent alarm.

So now I’m in jail. The public defender I met with said I’ll probably get at least two years in prison with a plea deal. I gotta say, I’m pretty surprised the Universe would want me to be a convicted felon, but here we are.