1. a favorite image.
aaaaaand
2. a new story.
(not connected with other stories, totally autonomous story with an actual ending and point)
Speaking with Ghosts
Tomb with a View
In a typical, brown-orange, dirty-clean Waffle House booth, he sat all alone save for a half empty cup of cold coffee and a crumpled napkin upon which his stirring spoon rested. He was a regular here (which, of course, meant he was highly irregular anywhere else). Everyday, before and after his first-shift slot at the Guest House Inn, he took in the exact same view from one of the three smoking booths: the 24 hour Exxon that refused to modernize, the stoplight at the first intersection off of the interstate, and his dreary place of work and residence. The Inn was an ironic roach motel that offered both weekly and hourly rates. As welcoming as the name sounded, the Guest House Inn was a place where no one felt at home. It was the place where people who werent wanted anywhere else plotted their revenge or reconciliation. It was a place of violent, classless people and a home to many a roach. Still, Austin didnt mind it so much. His was an easy job. He didnt have to clean the rooms filled with human waste and tragedy. He didnt have to handle the free loaders. He didnt have to do very much at all but answer the phone and rearrange the front desk. He had been working there for three years and had never even had to raise his voice. The cops who stayed parked out front did most of the hard work for him. They took care of the drunks, the free loaders, and the thieves. All he had to do is point and it got taken care of. It used to make him feel important; like he was a dictator and they were his secret police. But the frequency of the infractions took all the fun out of it. He was getting sick of the whole arrangement but he had nothing better to do so every morning he rolled out of bed and made it to the office in whatever he slept in. Even worse than the monotony of the job, some thing about the building itself ate away at him: the cracked paneling, the decades old carpets, the lingering smell of betrayal and infidelity. The Inn had been built with good intentions, but that was forty-five years and six owners ago.
Austin thought to himself that a lot of things are built with good intentions: the Catholic Church, dynamite, and his personal favorite, DDT. All built to help or save humanity from unseen threat, all led to death and destruction. He knew that DDT was nowhere near as destructive as religion or bombs but there was something incredible about Americas short lived love affair with the pesticide. He had read about the fanatical praise it received before WWII and it fascinated him. Billed as a completely safe! miracle chemical! its hey day was a great metaphor for our love for technology. Millions of tonnes of it spread out over the globe as farmers practically bathed in it. Children played outside while it was sprayed just next door. A whole nation lauded it as an achievement, and laughably used it as an example of a bold new future where sciences solutions no longer involved adverse side-effects. Thinking on it always reminded Austin that Heroin was cultivated to be a non-addictive substitute for morphine.
Austin was filled with fun facts about that golden era of hope and hypocrisy that was the first half of the American twentieth century. Two of his favorite possessions are a Popular Mechanics magazine from the 1939 Worlds fair in New York that made Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethan out to be the first rays of a new rising sun, and a New Post article from 1971 simply titled DDT R.I.P. The ultimate irony of it all, beyond even the discovered health risks, was that DDT had stopped killing insects. They had adapted. They have that luxury, Austin noted, change over generations. Weve only got so long, and so much of that time is spent in the in-between; the constant day in, day out repetition of tasks that never change. Austin had simply stopped creating memories of his own anymore. He now lived in the past, in the sallowed pages of hopeful journalism. Technological magazines that turned out to be pulp fiction. Their yellow pages were also ironic to him. Sensationalism, Yellow Journalism, ect.. Which is why DDT held his interest. He needed it to criticize all those movers and shakers he saw drive to work from his window: it was his justification for not doing anything. Everything he would say. will be spoiled by time. Every once and a while, hope arises, but time always corrects. In 1939, before it became a footnote in Americas history, DDT was a miracle chemical here to save us from the world of insect interference. We called it safe, and it turned out to be poison. We called it effective but time has a way of rendering all miracles obsolete. There was something almost... naughty about reading something in a Science magazine that he knew was complete bullshit. He often told anyone who would listen that none of what we are doing really matters; and that, in fact, time had already passed us by. We were just fading photographs in old magazines covered in dust and filled with lies. It had never occurred to him, that sometimes, all you really need was a good shaking to get the dust off.
The Pickle Jar
One night, about two years ago, Austin saw himself as others saw him for probably the first time in his uneventful life. It had all started when in a rare moment of openness he walked up to his favorite waitress Sandy, and tried to comfort her. Sandy was a woman whose life had been one tragedy after another, but she had always held her head high and kept moving. Austin, sadly, wasnt cognizant that she neither wanted, nor need any help. You dont need to look so worried about tomorrow, Sandy. He said as he locked eyes with her meaningfully.
Sandy just shook her head and said Is that so? She was good at ignoring customers. In fact, that was the reason she was so popular. She really didnt give a shit. She could play along all day if necessary but she would never get too involved. She could always laugh at the right times, and she had the uncanny ability to walk away at just the right time. She wasnt really in the mood, but Austin was a regular and she could feign interest if she had to.
No, I mean it...Its ok. he said, Its like... if you blink its like today is already gone. You know? So you cant worry about today or even tomorrow cuz itll already be yesterday. I mean, I know its easy to worry about all the details and tragedies but... but look over there, he said as he pointed out the window. Do you see the horizon? Do you see that burnt sunset? Thats us. We are the setting sun. You know? Were already the period pieces of tomorrow; and we dont even know it. Shot out of context with awkward accents and quaint rituals. I mean, why worry? He could tell Sandy hadnt followed the period pieces metaphor but he wanted so desperately for someone to hear to know his thoughts, so he continued talking and point out the window .
None of this will matter to whoever takes our jobs, our homes, our names after we have passed.... itll be like never even happened. Im getting distracted sorry. I dont mean to sound depressed cuz if you really understand, if you really accept all of it then its almost tolerable. I mean havent you ever wondered if... His voice trailed off as he looked into her tired, sagging eyes.
He would have kept going because he was enjoying his awkward attempt at dramatic speaking but Sandy seemed to be getting upset. He had never seen her sit that quietly before and he knew it was more than his eloquence that held her so rapt. He could feel her thinking all the wrong thoughts; could almost see the images in her eyes.
In a way Austin was wrong. It was just semantics really, but its still worth pointing out. Sandy wasnt thinking. She was remembering. It was like watching a movie, but in her head. Which, of course, meant she couldnt look away. There were no thoughts because she had no choice what to feel. There was no doubt and there would be no answers. She had no choice but to grieve.
She remembered watching in horror as her infant son, Tommy, fell off the couch and onto his head. She remembered how he nearly lost all of his motor skills. All the work she missed staying by his side and whispering into his ears that Momma was here was made possible by a big pickle jar with a picture of Tommy and the simple sentence: HELP SANDY. She remembered how for eight long months he had fought so hard just to learn to walk again. She remembered how hard she had cried when, after a year of expensive and mostly unresponsive attempts at therapy, he finally said ma ma. She remembered how much money it had cost to get him such good therapy. Every month she watched the stacks of bills pile up in her dimly lit kitchen in between the coffee maker and the toaster. The donations had helped, but not enough. And, worst of all, she remembered going to see a man at the bank about borrowing money the morning before her house burned down with Tommy and everything she owned inside of it. She started to shake and once again she wondered what the hell she was still working here for. These kids, she thought, they just get weirder every day.
Sandy started to turn for the kitchen to take for a smoke break but Austin stopped her. He had stared into her eyes during the thirty seconds it took for those memories to assault her. He could see the flames, and smell the smoke. His heart felt dead and his chest felt empty. Suddenly, it seemed like every time he tried to speak, the room got colder. Like he was speaking with ghosts, or maybe like he was one... He certainly felt dead inside.
He had meant well but he knew she wouldnt understand, so he apologized, and told her to have a good night. The twenty dollars he gave her for a tip might have seemed excessive, but what is money to a dead man? Talking to ghosts was a waste of time, he decided. A vow of silence was beginning to form on the tip of his tongue and he laughed a bit at the thought. How odd, we have to speak to say we are done talking.... Quiet mouse, still mouse... Go!
Flying Hotels and Sinking Ships
After that night, Austin started spending more and more time silently thumbing through those old magazines as if in prayer. He could see himself in the photographs and drawings of people long since departed for a better place: waving to his wife from his flying car, or petting his robot dog. He had found the amazing collection in his grandfathers closet a few weeks after the silent old man died. Without a thought, Austin greedily tucking them into his car and took off. The drive was a nightmare but once home it was like Christmas in April.
Strangely excited, he blew off the long accumulated dust and untied the old twine string that held the many volumes in tight bundles. The smell of death and decay was thick in the air as he leafed through the ancient, broken, promises of a future filled with talking houses and flying cars. He mockingly wondered aloud why he, a man of the future, didnt have a jet pack to insure he never arrived late for his important business meetings on Mars or private adventures on the Lunar Plains. Each new page seemed to be more full of shit than the last. Sometimes he giggled aloud at the gaudy zeppelins and flying hotels. Mostly he just read with the solemn attention of a monk in study. He found comfort in knowing that all those writers and all those artists, all the editors and speculators, and indeed probably all of the avid readers of those yellowed books, had died years ago. They may have been terribly wrong about a bright future, but they were beyond shame now. Death had brought them freedom from all the quant ironies, professional responsibilities, and personal tragedies of life. It was easier to face those ghosts than the ones he saw at work or out in the world. At least they knew they were dead.
At least they knew they were dead, he said to himself as he stirred his cold coffee years after the Sandy incident. She had left and come back to Waffle House three times now. He wondered how it was that no one else noticed these things that were so obvious to him. Hed been gazing out the giant greasy windows facing the highway for hours now. He wasnt sure what it was he was waiting or looking for, but he was almost positive it would never come. His pasty brow wrinkled as he wondered why everyone else had somewhere to go. Where were they going? Who was waiting for them? What would happen? What would happen?
And so with each passing car he gained more and more reverence for the road, but he wasnt meant for the mystique of that endless highway. He was tainted by knowledge. Over qualified, he told himself. He knew that leaving wouldnt change anything because he couldnt relate; not here, or anywhere else. Ghosts are ghosts no matter where you go.
Feeling dead doesnt give you much of shot at living, but such is life. Or such is death he mumbled out loud and nervously coughed as he stared out the greasy glass panes. Ten thought-free minutes passed as he stared out the window at the orange tinted sunset. It was tucked in with a purple pink blanket and floating gracefully to sleep beneath the evergreens and stop lights that made up his side of town. The ugly scene of constant construction and burgeoning sprawl still glowed like a neon cross when he closed his eyes.
Glancing about, he wondered if this was the longest he had ever gone with out getting a refill. He knew it couldnt be a Waffle House record but an hour and a half was certainly a personal best. Most regulars would just yell out for more but he wasnt even regular here anymore. He had become too quiet for this place, he thought as he turned to face the dying sun.
And then,
Then he saw it.
The Wreck.
Saw with his own tired, blood shot eyes as the giant black truck fail to yield; fail to even slow as it flew into the sporty, fire engine red Pontiac Sunfire. His pale visage was reflected onto the windows by a trick of light. His morbid curiosity-colored profile replacing the darker parts of the landscape, his eyes light up with child like fascination. It was strange to be staring into his own reflection as he selfishly envied the driver of the convertible. The once proud car made to be a liquid mass before the great power of the Coal Black, Ford F-350 Super-Duty. Red panels crumpled like so many beer cans, and obtained a new shape, never before dreamed by even the most macabre of the engineers who worked on its design. A twisted, mangled, dying creature bleeding a mixture of mechanical and human blood, it was a brightly burning funeral pyre.
Amidst the gasps and shrieks inside the waffle house, Austin finished his coffee- no longer caring how sickeningly cold it was. His mind was racing and it needed fuel. Death had always made him feel abnormally alive. To his right, Sandy, a woman who knew death too well, was crying. No one, not even Sandy, knew if it was for the driver of the Pontiac or the memories brought back by burning heap. Still, in telling display of inescapable human nature, she was fascinated. Right hand to her mouth, lower lip raised and trembling, she lay across the booth next to Austin with her face pressed to the glass. After it had all sunk in, she collapsed into the brown bench seat.
A crowd gathered around her. Regulars, coworkers, and strangers alike comforted her to keep themselves from thinking about what they had just seen. Camera phones called 911 and a few patrons run outside to help, only to be beat back by the flames.
Someone unplugged the Jukebox and two hours disappeared. Everyone comforted everyone else but him. At one sobering point just after the sun had completely set, Austin realized that strangers got more attention here than he did.
The firemen, police, and paramedics came and went until little more than shattered glass and stained concrete remained. Traffic slowly returned to normal after the twisted coffin of a car was towed away. He set the death cold porcelain cup down, left his customary two dollar tip, and slowly shuffled towards the well labeled two door exit: pull to enter , push to leave. His eyes were empty, and they pierced the darkness searching for some way out He was tired of playing the part; pretending to be alive but feeling completely dead.
The North Star Triumphant.
Sometimes when he crossed the grass separating the highway and the parking lot and walked through the traffic to his apartment, he would look longingly at the speeding cars all around him and briefly wish he were driving. Tonight was different. Something had changed inside him. He was tired of wishing. It was time to end this game. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and shuffled his feet. He could feel where the concrete met the grass through his frayed tennis shoes. He kept his eyes closed tight, and swore to never open them again.
Slowly, methodically, he lifted his right foot and took that first familiar step. His left foot followed in suit as he began his death march. It was morbid and silly but, as anyone of the people who had ignored him that evening, so was he. As he walked, he thought what he expected to be his final thoughts. He wondered about Sandys reaction to the wreck. It honestly baffled him. Every day he felt more and more dead, and yet this woman... this sad woman still felt sorrow. She still felt sympathy, she still had hope. He wondered if anyone would cry for him. Before tonight he would have been sure that the answer was no, but he couldnt be so sure anymore. Would Sandy? Each new step brought new questions and he was running out of time to find the answers. And then suddenly, without knowing why he paused about half way across the normally busy street and opened his eyes to look at the clear night sky.
A few stars had escaped the halo of light pollution and he wished he could shine so brightly. He had no idea what he to do next. Only halfway into his suicide and he was already without a motive. Never one to avoid an opportunity for self deprecation he bent over and laughed out loud at how stupid he could be when he let his thoughts take over.
And then, suddenly, he felt a change in air pressure to his right and looked to his right just in time to see a dark shape swerving towards him. Towards, not away. In one millionth of a second a decision was made. He jumped to his right and landed ungracefully on his side. The loud squeal of the dark black trucks tires coupled with the roar of its engine gave the flying black figure an eerie quality, like a screeching dragon in the night. He hit the pavement with a sick thud landing on his right wrist and then his head.
Eyes closed, he shook himself and tried to gather his balance. The truck, it appeared, was gone. With the road now wide open he sat perfectly still for at least thirty seconds. The puzzled look in his eyes slowly changed to feeling absolute terror and he became convinced the truck would swing back any second now to finish the job. And so without another thought of deaths glory, or lifes futility he took off running for his dimly lit tomb. He didnt waste any more time thinking about the truck, Sandy, or his job; he just ran. First up the steps, and then into his door as he fumbled for his keys. He turned on all the lights, suddenly comforted by the light and started packing whatever he could fit into his messenger bag. He hoped that the next sunrise wouldnt hurt him as the last had. He hoped to see the birth of a new day and not the death of yet another. And as he threw a black bag filled with dusty books into a dumpster he hoped that he could make it to the greyhound station before the next bus departed. He was beyond thankful to have hope, and genuinely happy to be alive.
No one in that town ever saw him again, and few noticed. That was fine as far as Austin was concerned. The kid they knew did die that night and he didnt expect anyone to mourn him. There was no sign of him when they checked his room the next morning except for a handwritten note that read:
(please deliver to Sandy @ Waffle House)
Thank You. Im sorry.
aaaaaand
2. a new story.
(not connected with other stories, totally autonomous story with an actual ending and point)
Speaking with Ghosts
Tomb with a View
In a typical, brown-orange, dirty-clean Waffle House booth, he sat all alone save for a half empty cup of cold coffee and a crumpled napkin upon which his stirring spoon rested. He was a regular here (which, of course, meant he was highly irregular anywhere else). Everyday, before and after his first-shift slot at the Guest House Inn, he took in the exact same view from one of the three smoking booths: the 24 hour Exxon that refused to modernize, the stoplight at the first intersection off of the interstate, and his dreary place of work and residence. The Inn was an ironic roach motel that offered both weekly and hourly rates. As welcoming as the name sounded, the Guest House Inn was a place where no one felt at home. It was the place where people who werent wanted anywhere else plotted their revenge or reconciliation. It was a place of violent, classless people and a home to many a roach. Still, Austin didnt mind it so much. His was an easy job. He didnt have to clean the rooms filled with human waste and tragedy. He didnt have to handle the free loaders. He didnt have to do very much at all but answer the phone and rearrange the front desk. He had been working there for three years and had never even had to raise his voice. The cops who stayed parked out front did most of the hard work for him. They took care of the drunks, the free loaders, and the thieves. All he had to do is point and it got taken care of. It used to make him feel important; like he was a dictator and they were his secret police. But the frequency of the infractions took all the fun out of it. He was getting sick of the whole arrangement but he had nothing better to do so every morning he rolled out of bed and made it to the office in whatever he slept in. Even worse than the monotony of the job, some thing about the building itself ate away at him: the cracked paneling, the decades old carpets, the lingering smell of betrayal and infidelity. The Inn had been built with good intentions, but that was forty-five years and six owners ago.
Austin thought to himself that a lot of things are built with good intentions: the Catholic Church, dynamite, and his personal favorite, DDT. All built to help or save humanity from unseen threat, all led to death and destruction. He knew that DDT was nowhere near as destructive as religion or bombs but there was something incredible about Americas short lived love affair with the pesticide. He had read about the fanatical praise it received before WWII and it fascinated him. Billed as a completely safe! miracle chemical! its hey day was a great metaphor for our love for technology. Millions of tonnes of it spread out over the globe as farmers practically bathed in it. Children played outside while it was sprayed just next door. A whole nation lauded it as an achievement, and laughably used it as an example of a bold new future where sciences solutions no longer involved adverse side-effects. Thinking on it always reminded Austin that Heroin was cultivated to be a non-addictive substitute for morphine.
Austin was filled with fun facts about that golden era of hope and hypocrisy that was the first half of the American twentieth century. Two of his favorite possessions are a Popular Mechanics magazine from the 1939 Worlds fair in New York that made Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethan out to be the first rays of a new rising sun, and a New Post article from 1971 simply titled DDT R.I.P. The ultimate irony of it all, beyond even the discovered health risks, was that DDT had stopped killing insects. They had adapted. They have that luxury, Austin noted, change over generations. Weve only got so long, and so much of that time is spent in the in-between; the constant day in, day out repetition of tasks that never change. Austin had simply stopped creating memories of his own anymore. He now lived in the past, in the sallowed pages of hopeful journalism. Technological magazines that turned out to be pulp fiction. Their yellow pages were also ironic to him. Sensationalism, Yellow Journalism, ect.. Which is why DDT held his interest. He needed it to criticize all those movers and shakers he saw drive to work from his window: it was his justification for not doing anything. Everything he would say. will be spoiled by time. Every once and a while, hope arises, but time always corrects. In 1939, before it became a footnote in Americas history, DDT was a miracle chemical here to save us from the world of insect interference. We called it safe, and it turned out to be poison. We called it effective but time has a way of rendering all miracles obsolete. There was something almost... naughty about reading something in a Science magazine that he knew was complete bullshit. He often told anyone who would listen that none of what we are doing really matters; and that, in fact, time had already passed us by. We were just fading photographs in old magazines covered in dust and filled with lies. It had never occurred to him, that sometimes, all you really need was a good shaking to get the dust off.
The Pickle Jar
One night, about two years ago, Austin saw himself as others saw him for probably the first time in his uneventful life. It had all started when in a rare moment of openness he walked up to his favorite waitress Sandy, and tried to comfort her. Sandy was a woman whose life had been one tragedy after another, but she had always held her head high and kept moving. Austin, sadly, wasnt cognizant that she neither wanted, nor need any help. You dont need to look so worried about tomorrow, Sandy. He said as he locked eyes with her meaningfully.
Sandy just shook her head and said Is that so? She was good at ignoring customers. In fact, that was the reason she was so popular. She really didnt give a shit. She could play along all day if necessary but she would never get too involved. She could always laugh at the right times, and she had the uncanny ability to walk away at just the right time. She wasnt really in the mood, but Austin was a regular and she could feign interest if she had to.
No, I mean it...Its ok. he said, Its like... if you blink its like today is already gone. You know? So you cant worry about today or even tomorrow cuz itll already be yesterday. I mean, I know its easy to worry about all the details and tragedies but... but look over there, he said as he pointed out the window. Do you see the horizon? Do you see that burnt sunset? Thats us. We are the setting sun. You know? Were already the period pieces of tomorrow; and we dont even know it. Shot out of context with awkward accents and quaint rituals. I mean, why worry? He could tell Sandy hadnt followed the period pieces metaphor but he wanted so desperately for someone to hear to know his thoughts, so he continued talking and point out the window .
None of this will matter to whoever takes our jobs, our homes, our names after we have passed.... itll be like never even happened. Im getting distracted sorry. I dont mean to sound depressed cuz if you really understand, if you really accept all of it then its almost tolerable. I mean havent you ever wondered if... His voice trailed off as he looked into her tired, sagging eyes.
He would have kept going because he was enjoying his awkward attempt at dramatic speaking but Sandy seemed to be getting upset. He had never seen her sit that quietly before and he knew it was more than his eloquence that held her so rapt. He could feel her thinking all the wrong thoughts; could almost see the images in her eyes.
In a way Austin was wrong. It was just semantics really, but its still worth pointing out. Sandy wasnt thinking. She was remembering. It was like watching a movie, but in her head. Which, of course, meant she couldnt look away. There were no thoughts because she had no choice what to feel. There was no doubt and there would be no answers. She had no choice but to grieve.
She remembered watching in horror as her infant son, Tommy, fell off the couch and onto his head. She remembered how he nearly lost all of his motor skills. All the work she missed staying by his side and whispering into his ears that Momma was here was made possible by a big pickle jar with a picture of Tommy and the simple sentence: HELP SANDY. She remembered how for eight long months he had fought so hard just to learn to walk again. She remembered how hard she had cried when, after a year of expensive and mostly unresponsive attempts at therapy, he finally said ma ma. She remembered how much money it had cost to get him such good therapy. Every month she watched the stacks of bills pile up in her dimly lit kitchen in between the coffee maker and the toaster. The donations had helped, but not enough. And, worst of all, she remembered going to see a man at the bank about borrowing money the morning before her house burned down with Tommy and everything she owned inside of it. She started to shake and once again she wondered what the hell she was still working here for. These kids, she thought, they just get weirder every day.
Sandy started to turn for the kitchen to take for a smoke break but Austin stopped her. He had stared into her eyes during the thirty seconds it took for those memories to assault her. He could see the flames, and smell the smoke. His heart felt dead and his chest felt empty. Suddenly, it seemed like every time he tried to speak, the room got colder. Like he was speaking with ghosts, or maybe like he was one... He certainly felt dead inside.
He had meant well but he knew she wouldnt understand, so he apologized, and told her to have a good night. The twenty dollars he gave her for a tip might have seemed excessive, but what is money to a dead man? Talking to ghosts was a waste of time, he decided. A vow of silence was beginning to form on the tip of his tongue and he laughed a bit at the thought. How odd, we have to speak to say we are done talking.... Quiet mouse, still mouse... Go!
Flying Hotels and Sinking Ships
After that night, Austin started spending more and more time silently thumbing through those old magazines as if in prayer. He could see himself in the photographs and drawings of people long since departed for a better place: waving to his wife from his flying car, or petting his robot dog. He had found the amazing collection in his grandfathers closet a few weeks after the silent old man died. Without a thought, Austin greedily tucking them into his car and took off. The drive was a nightmare but once home it was like Christmas in April.
Strangely excited, he blew off the long accumulated dust and untied the old twine string that held the many volumes in tight bundles. The smell of death and decay was thick in the air as he leafed through the ancient, broken, promises of a future filled with talking houses and flying cars. He mockingly wondered aloud why he, a man of the future, didnt have a jet pack to insure he never arrived late for his important business meetings on Mars or private adventures on the Lunar Plains. Each new page seemed to be more full of shit than the last. Sometimes he giggled aloud at the gaudy zeppelins and flying hotels. Mostly he just read with the solemn attention of a monk in study. He found comfort in knowing that all those writers and all those artists, all the editors and speculators, and indeed probably all of the avid readers of those yellowed books, had died years ago. They may have been terribly wrong about a bright future, but they were beyond shame now. Death had brought them freedom from all the quant ironies, professional responsibilities, and personal tragedies of life. It was easier to face those ghosts than the ones he saw at work or out in the world. At least they knew they were dead.
At least they knew they were dead, he said to himself as he stirred his cold coffee years after the Sandy incident. She had left and come back to Waffle House three times now. He wondered how it was that no one else noticed these things that were so obvious to him. Hed been gazing out the giant greasy windows facing the highway for hours now. He wasnt sure what it was he was waiting or looking for, but he was almost positive it would never come. His pasty brow wrinkled as he wondered why everyone else had somewhere to go. Where were they going? Who was waiting for them? What would happen? What would happen?
And so with each passing car he gained more and more reverence for the road, but he wasnt meant for the mystique of that endless highway. He was tainted by knowledge. Over qualified, he told himself. He knew that leaving wouldnt change anything because he couldnt relate; not here, or anywhere else. Ghosts are ghosts no matter where you go.
Feeling dead doesnt give you much of shot at living, but such is life. Or such is death he mumbled out loud and nervously coughed as he stared out the greasy glass panes. Ten thought-free minutes passed as he stared out the window at the orange tinted sunset. It was tucked in with a purple pink blanket and floating gracefully to sleep beneath the evergreens and stop lights that made up his side of town. The ugly scene of constant construction and burgeoning sprawl still glowed like a neon cross when he closed his eyes.
Glancing about, he wondered if this was the longest he had ever gone with out getting a refill. He knew it couldnt be a Waffle House record but an hour and a half was certainly a personal best. Most regulars would just yell out for more but he wasnt even regular here anymore. He had become too quiet for this place, he thought as he turned to face the dying sun.
And then,
Then he saw it.
The Wreck.
Saw with his own tired, blood shot eyes as the giant black truck fail to yield; fail to even slow as it flew into the sporty, fire engine red Pontiac Sunfire. His pale visage was reflected onto the windows by a trick of light. His morbid curiosity-colored profile replacing the darker parts of the landscape, his eyes light up with child like fascination. It was strange to be staring into his own reflection as he selfishly envied the driver of the convertible. The once proud car made to be a liquid mass before the great power of the Coal Black, Ford F-350 Super-Duty. Red panels crumpled like so many beer cans, and obtained a new shape, never before dreamed by even the most macabre of the engineers who worked on its design. A twisted, mangled, dying creature bleeding a mixture of mechanical and human blood, it was a brightly burning funeral pyre.
Amidst the gasps and shrieks inside the waffle house, Austin finished his coffee- no longer caring how sickeningly cold it was. His mind was racing and it needed fuel. Death had always made him feel abnormally alive. To his right, Sandy, a woman who knew death too well, was crying. No one, not even Sandy, knew if it was for the driver of the Pontiac or the memories brought back by burning heap. Still, in telling display of inescapable human nature, she was fascinated. Right hand to her mouth, lower lip raised and trembling, she lay across the booth next to Austin with her face pressed to the glass. After it had all sunk in, she collapsed into the brown bench seat.
A crowd gathered around her. Regulars, coworkers, and strangers alike comforted her to keep themselves from thinking about what they had just seen. Camera phones called 911 and a few patrons run outside to help, only to be beat back by the flames.
Someone unplugged the Jukebox and two hours disappeared. Everyone comforted everyone else but him. At one sobering point just after the sun had completely set, Austin realized that strangers got more attention here than he did.
The firemen, police, and paramedics came and went until little more than shattered glass and stained concrete remained. Traffic slowly returned to normal after the twisted coffin of a car was towed away. He set the death cold porcelain cup down, left his customary two dollar tip, and slowly shuffled towards the well labeled two door exit: pull to enter , push to leave. His eyes were empty, and they pierced the darkness searching for some way out He was tired of playing the part; pretending to be alive but feeling completely dead.
The North Star Triumphant.
Sometimes when he crossed the grass separating the highway and the parking lot and walked through the traffic to his apartment, he would look longingly at the speeding cars all around him and briefly wish he were driving. Tonight was different. Something had changed inside him. He was tired of wishing. It was time to end this game. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and shuffled his feet. He could feel where the concrete met the grass through his frayed tennis shoes. He kept his eyes closed tight, and swore to never open them again.
Slowly, methodically, he lifted his right foot and took that first familiar step. His left foot followed in suit as he began his death march. It was morbid and silly but, as anyone of the people who had ignored him that evening, so was he. As he walked, he thought what he expected to be his final thoughts. He wondered about Sandys reaction to the wreck. It honestly baffled him. Every day he felt more and more dead, and yet this woman... this sad woman still felt sorrow. She still felt sympathy, she still had hope. He wondered if anyone would cry for him. Before tonight he would have been sure that the answer was no, but he couldnt be so sure anymore. Would Sandy? Each new step brought new questions and he was running out of time to find the answers. And then suddenly, without knowing why he paused about half way across the normally busy street and opened his eyes to look at the clear night sky.
A few stars had escaped the halo of light pollution and he wished he could shine so brightly. He had no idea what he to do next. Only halfway into his suicide and he was already without a motive. Never one to avoid an opportunity for self deprecation he bent over and laughed out loud at how stupid he could be when he let his thoughts take over.
And then, suddenly, he felt a change in air pressure to his right and looked to his right just in time to see a dark shape swerving towards him. Towards, not away. In one millionth of a second a decision was made. He jumped to his right and landed ungracefully on his side. The loud squeal of the dark black trucks tires coupled with the roar of its engine gave the flying black figure an eerie quality, like a screeching dragon in the night. He hit the pavement with a sick thud landing on his right wrist and then his head.
Eyes closed, he shook himself and tried to gather his balance. The truck, it appeared, was gone. With the road now wide open he sat perfectly still for at least thirty seconds. The puzzled look in his eyes slowly changed to feeling absolute terror and he became convinced the truck would swing back any second now to finish the job. And so without another thought of deaths glory, or lifes futility he took off running for his dimly lit tomb. He didnt waste any more time thinking about the truck, Sandy, or his job; he just ran. First up the steps, and then into his door as he fumbled for his keys. He turned on all the lights, suddenly comforted by the light and started packing whatever he could fit into his messenger bag. He hoped that the next sunrise wouldnt hurt him as the last had. He hoped to see the birth of a new day and not the death of yet another. And as he threw a black bag filled with dusty books into a dumpster he hoped that he could make it to the greyhound station before the next bus departed. He was beyond thankful to have hope, and genuinely happy to be alive.
No one in that town ever saw him again, and few noticed. That was fine as far as Austin was concerned. The kid they knew did die that night and he didnt expect anyone to mourn him. There was no sign of him when they checked his room the next morning except for a handwritten note that read:
(please deliver to Sandy @ Waffle House)
Thank You. Im sorry.