It's an early Monday morning. There's fog settling outside the diner in the parking lot, reaching for me outside the window; it's pretty much empty, inside and in. A man or woman's been asleep in the corner, a heap of dirty clothes, probably homeless. A waitress is behind the counter, silverware clacking from somewhere in the back by someone out of view, making her watch the news on the plasma with focus on her face. She pulls out a headphone, letting one hang in her ear, trailing into her apron. The news is showing off a feel-good story of a kid raising thousands after walking from town to the city, nothing big. Beneath the kid is the time: 7:44 am.
I'm alone in the corner, three cups of black coffee in front of me; they stopped steaming a couple hours ago. I'm twenty next week, but I won't be back for that, not quite yet. I'm a mess, and I shrink a bit, thinking of that person in the corner. I've been without a shower for a week; yet here I've been staring on and off at the sheets, looking like a swamp beast from out of the fog. A black ribbon in my hair is keeping it all together. I'm running off very little sleep and about ten dollars; I shouldn't be sitting upright, so I stop myself from sinking and pull myself forward onto my coffee mugs. My face hanging over them, I nearly throw up smelling that bitter water. Coffee is disgusting.
A man and his kid come in, dressed too warm for the Summer sun that would be cooking them in an hour. Part of me says he's stupid, and I try to quiet that part of me down. Their eyes dart around me, not at me, and get seated a couple tables too close, even though most of the diner's empty. They thoughtlessly glare at the lady, as she comes out from behind the counter, her pen clicking in tune with her shoes. As they order, both rather hushed, I pull the ribbon from my hair and let it all down; some gets in my coffee but I let it stew in it. On the ribbon is a once pretty white gel ink, smeared from my mess of hair, the writing already barely intelligible with how my sixteen year old self used to write.
"Get fifty from the coin bank. Buy fifty worth of coke. Annihilate Brad in galactic conquest"
That's a Friday from ages ago. I saw a couple of my closest friends that night; we didn't get any sleep over the whole weekend. It was fun.
I flip the ribbon over, and with that same writing but a bit more clearly, "When news shows a time of 7:45 am, David and his son Tracy enter the diner. At 7:47 am, Tracy leaves for the bathroom, and sits back down at 7:48 am. They sit and eat until 8:29 am, pay, then leave. At 8:55 am..."
I quickly tie up my hair with the ribbon, coffee smearing across my face; I can feel some trickle to my chin. I look into my closest coffee, and let my eyes go out of focus, not giving effort to concentrate on it again. I can feel the waitress stare at me, I think; I hear her walk off to the kitchen. I'm drooling a bit, but it could be coffee.
The bubbles on the coffee blur into images in my head; I see our marriage, and we're smiling. Everything is clean. We kiss in Athens with the blue ocean stretching from our barefeet, off into distance. Water reaches for the dress, and soaks the bottom, but I don't care. A voice in my ear, who I think is Brad's, it says "when did this become not good enough?" I stand and push myself, trying to hold myself together.
I'm passing the man; I imagine him leaning against the window, in shock. I don't look; I know his boy is already gone. My shoes sticking to the tiles, I can hear the talk of a woman on the news, the weather breaking through between steps. In the unlit hallway, I enter the men's bathroom quietly, the kid there already washing his hands. He looks back at me with eye-brows going up with rehearsed disgust, his face tilting back towards the sink. I see a swamp monster in dregs creep towards him through the mirror. I kneel beside him, the tap still running as he starts washing intensely, water slapping his shirt and the mirror as I bring myself by the sink.
"I have to warn you, you have to stay right here."
This nine or ten year old lets out a quick, "I shouldn't say anything," something like that. There's a bit of anger, water starting to splash at me too. I shake a bit, my leg muscles forgetting how to work, forcing me to clutch the sink.
"I'm a witch, you know, and I'm here to warn you. I want you to stay right here, in this bathroom." Water hits the floor as he leans away. "Until I come back and get you. Okay?" He glares at me, putting on his bravest face.
"Witch stuff isn't real. I'm not five," he mumbles, his arms crossed, hands soaking his sides before he puts his hands back out. I put my hands out too, almost falling into him.
"Do you believe in destiny?" I nearly put my hands under his. "You can wash your hands all you want, but your story's all there, plain as day, unwashable." He doesn't move, frozen in place. "All of you is written in those lines, and they say you have to stay right here. I've read it all, and there's nothing for you in that diner. Bad luck and heartache is out there, but I can save you." I grab his sides, soaked in water clinging to us both. I feel him gasp, but I keep going. "You can leave, but you can stay here, too, happily in this room...Are you going to stay here?" He nods his head quickly. Yes. I leave him alone.
The heap of clothes is still asleep in the one corner; by mine, there are two plates with pancakes, the man waiting quitely doing nothing to keep himself busy. He stares into his thumbs in front of him. I place ten bucks on the edge of the counter, the lady focused on news again. I brush through the doors, making my way to my old beater, facing the diner. The passenger door has the window already down, the glovebox collapses open when I reach in and brush it. Inside, a handgun nearly falls out as the glovebox bounces. In my hand, it feels the familar weight of being loaded. I tug at the door handle, letting the gun flash for a moment as I pull my arm out from the window frame. I hope the fog hides the shape of it, until I kneel back behind the door, and face the diner. Inside, the person sleeps from the corner beneath a window, the lady's watching something about dogs, the man still sits alone quietly.
Around me, I hear the engines from people pulling up, the crack of dirt under wheels in the parking lot. I don't look, even when I hear people coming out, doors clicking open as the breakfast crowd starts piling in. My wrists rest on the window frame, my eyes locked on the side of the man's face.
That voice again, more clearly Brad's, lulls me to a state half awake. I can feel grass lap at my legs, holding me just like him.
"Pull back here". A loud click causes a girl to gasp behind me. "Good!"
The kid's in front of his dad, I can hear him yelling though the glass.
"Take a deep breath". I can feel his as a bottle of coke appears at the tip of the gun.
The kid points past him, towards me. His father's holding him as he steps out of the booth.
"Then shoot". Brad's voice fades to a whisper, the grass dissolves into concrete as a man behind me yells "gun". I hear running towards me. The man inside turns to face me, our eyes locked.
"I love you, Brad". For the first time today, my hands stop shaking.
Comments (0)
See all