Fast hours ago

Two hours out of Riyadh on the road to Qassim, at one in the afternoon, a family pulls in for lunch with three children who have been hungry since the last exit.

Behind the pumps are two doors. One is a burger counter: a lit board with a photograph of everything, a screen above the till, a young man waiting to take the order. The other has a painted sign for lamb and rice, a curtain where the door should be, and a row of sandals outside.

The father picks the counter. From the car it looks like the quicker lunch.

The order takes under a minute. Then nothing starts until it reaches the grill. Patties, buns and fries for five, each made only once it is asked for. He stands with the receipt in his hand while other numbers come up on the screen.

A minute behind them, another car parks and its family goes through the curtain. Nobody there asks what they want, only how many. A round tray comes out, rice under a whole shoulder of lamb that went into the pit before dawn, and it is down on the mat before the youngest is back from washing his hands.

That place was fast as well. It was fast at five in the morning, when somebody stood over the pit and guessed how many cars would stop at one and how much they would eat. Whatever speed the second family felt was a wager laid in the dark.

The counter laid a different one: wait for the order, then cook. Nothing guessed, nothing thrown away, and quick enough for anyone content to stand a while by the till.

Neither door is simply the fast one. Each picked a kind of fast and paid for it with something: the pit with lamb that may go unsold by dusk, the counter with a family watching numbers on a screen. Both knew what they were trading.

The slow place on that road would be a third door, run by someone who never decided which speed he was selling.