Diner Conversations

The diner was empty save for a single booth in the corner. Maggie walked from behind the counter with a fresh pot of coffee, her name tag slightly crooked and stained with the dinner special from the rush earlier that night. On a busy night there would be a couple of truckers stopping for a late night meal on a long haul or a bunch of teenagers looking for something to quail their drunken hunger pains. However, there was always a man who came every night and sat in the last booth in the corner of the diner. He had various streaks of grey hair peeking their way through the darkness of his short black hair that lay untamed on his head; a matching mustache on his upper lip. He looked to be no older than thirty. The expression on his face was calm but he always sat upright with his arms stiff by his side. A note pad lay on the table to his right, that night the notebook was a deep blue. Maggie had seen him with a different notebook every month or so, always vigorously scribbling on it after his second cup of coffee but never after eating his hash browns. He was a creature of very strange and interesting habits. The waitresses nicknamed him "Poe" because in the two years he had been a regular customer, not once did he reveal his name, he just sat in the last booth with his dark hair and mustache, grimly scribbling away into endless notebooks, the blue lights from the neon sign outside the diner flickering on his face When he stared out the window.

The neon sign on the roof of the diner emitted a low humming noise that could be heard lightly over the music coming from the jukebox by the front door. Eric, the cook, was in the back arguing with the owner Joan. Something about the change in the menu and how the standards of diners had fallen since "he was a boy". Eric was surprisingly old to be working as a cook in a diner, but he was good at what he did and he'd die before he went to a retirement home. Eric was always sharing parts of his life with Maggie and anyone who so much as set a foot in "his kitchen", which she didn't mind. He told her that the only way to not go insane in this world was to surround yourself with people and work. She thought the old man was a bit senile. Maggie already had her life mapped out in her mind, the diner was just a detour. By the time she was Eric's age, she planned on being retired and relaxing on a beach in Europe, but to each his own. As Maggie made her way across the empty diner, lukewarm coffee pot in hand, she noticed something different about Poe, the gold band that once rested on his ring finger was now gone. Whenever she saw it, she would think back to the days when her father was still around. He used to adorn a gold ring on his finger as well. As a girl she would always twist the gold ring around her father's finger as she sat in his lap while he watched television. That was all before he died, leaving her with her mother and younger sister, eventually forcing her to get a job at the diner bussing tables, serving food and pouring coffee at odd hours. As she poured Poe his second cup of coffee, she wondered to herself if she should say something to comfort him. It wasn't as if they were close friends, after two years they were still strangers. Just the sounds of a knife going across a plate as he cut through his pancakes and coffee being poured, that was their nightly conversation. Except for that night. As she turned to walk back to the kitchen Poe asked very silently and abruptly, " When do you get off?". Maggie wasn't sure of how to respond, she turned back to look at him sitting there staring at his plate of half eaten pancakes as if it would disappear if he blinked.

"I... About three hours from now," she replied hesitantly.

Unsure of what she expected in response, let alone what to do, Maggie hurriedly walked back to the kitchen and managed to bump into a table on the way, spilling room temperature coffee on herself. The kitchen had become a war zone that could be heard from across the diner as Joan screamed "Screw your damn homemade apple pie, we're serving blueberry!".  Maggie burst through the swinging doors, eyes wide open in shock. Joan noticed her standing there, a huge coffee stain on her pink colored uniform.

" Maggie what the hell? If you don't get that coffee stain out, you're paying for that ugly thing. Trust me, it ain't as cheap as it looks."

Eric scoffed, mumbling to himself as he walked into the freezer for more meat, "Probably got it at some discount store, can't even afford to make decent food. Back in my day, stuff was high-grade quality. Coffee would've slid right off, not even a stain". Joan rolled her eyes and pretended not to hear Eric's last remarks as he disappeared into the freezer. Maggie still stood at the doorway, motionless, thinking back to her brief encounter.

"Maggie, stop standing there like a deer in headlights!" Maggie looked at Joan and words just started tumbling out. "I poured his coffee like usual and then, then, he stopped me and asked me when I was getting off".

 Even Joan looked a little surprised. She peered out the stained window of the kitchen doors. She looked out across the diner and Poe sitting in the back corner peering out the window; there a group of drunk high school kids in the parking lot tumbling their way towards the diner. Joan looked back at Maggie.

"Do whatever you want, but your curiosity will probably nag you to death eventually if you don't talk to him. Just go over there now, you need to take a break anyways, Alley just pulled up in the parking lot. She can handle the kids.”

Maggie looked out towards the parking lot and surely enough Alley was standing by her car, looking at her reflection in the window and straightening her hair. As Maggie gave Joan a disapproving look the bell over the door rang as the door was thrust open carelessly, the dinner suddenly flooded with intoxicated laughter. 

Maggie had once asked Joan why she never called the sheriff's office about all the minors who stumbled in drunk. Joan said that life is full of mistakes and it would be silly to reprimand someone else for the things she did once too. As Maggie headed out to escort the new group to a big enough table, Eric started on one of his rants about how things were better in his days .The door chimed again as Maggie finished sitting the large group of high school students.

"Hey Alley, can you cover this table." Maggie began taking her apron off as she crossed the diner back to the kitchen. Alley looked back at the table of drunks as she and Maggie entered the kitchen and released a sigh of disgust. "Fine, but you get the creepy truckers later."  

"Sounds like a deal." Maggie clocked out and headed back out of the kitchen. Poe still sat at his usual table, scribbling in his new notebook. He seemed startled by her sudden presence, slighting jolting in his seat as she sat down across from him. For a few moments they both sat there in silence. His lips were moving as if he was going to say something, but nothing would come out. Maggie turned to look out of the window, it had snowed earlier that day and a few inches of snow still lay on the sidewalk. She could see the footprints left behind by the group of teenagers when they found their way to the diner, they looked almost like the outline of an intricate dance. "Snow is beautiful isn't it?" asked Maggie absent-mindedly. Poe reached across the table and put his hand over Maggie's. A barrage of images flooded Maggie's head. The image of a woman wearing a Victorian style dress, her blue eyes overflowing with tears. Another of a young boy in all back running up a hill to meet the crying woman. A graveyard covered in snow. Other images seemed to pass over her eyes, but they were much faster and seemed to have no connection, except that the people inside them seemed to be trying to reach out and escape from behind her eyes. Poe's body began to arch back as his head slowly fell back on his neck and then he collapsed over. The last image that Maggie saw was that of herself and then nothing.

Slowly Poe raised himself from the booth, grabbing his notebook and silently crossing the diner towards the front door. Alley came out of the kitchen holding a tray of food as Poe neared the door. "Hey, is he okay?" Alley nudged her head towards the collapsed body in the corner booth of the diner as she set down her tray. Poe looked across the diner at the table he’d just left; he thought about giving an explanation for the shell of a body he had left behind, but instead he continued towards the door. He never had a love for snow, but he could still feel the traces of the woman who found it so remarkable. "Where are you going? Joan will be pissed if you just walk out on your shift." Alley called out as Poe stood with one foot out of the door. Poe looked back with a smile across his young feminine face "It's quite boring to stay in one place for eternity is it not?"

Random Old Freewrite

 The town clock tower struck midnight as the last storefront closed on the desolate winter streets. This wasn't where he wanted to be. He had always fancied himself a daring hero who prevailed in the end to claim his prize and win the heart of the damsel no longer in distress due to his heroic efforts. Who could have foretold that the one in distress would be him? Rushing into situations blindly had always been a fault of his. However, as he awoke to sharp pains in his wrists, he quickly  began to regret not thinking his actions through.

"Ah, I see you have decided to grace us with you much despised presence."

That smirk voice filled with hatred, he had known it for years.
" Johnathan? "
"So you still remember me? I'm surprised at you " Johnathan stood in a far away corner of the room, his body shrowded by shadows, only his face could be seen in the light eminating from the window further up the barren walls.
"How could I forget when I see your face everywhere I go."  The metallic taste of blood now filled Tristan's mouth.
"Oh no brother, my face is much more attractive. We may be twins, but I dare say I inherited all the looks...and well now it would seem I have the brains as well."
 Tristan couldn't see it, but he could feel Johnathan crook his mouth into a twisted smirk as he watched from the shadows. He tried standing, but soon found that his feet were bound by very short chains, they rattled as he fell face forward to the  ground. Blood. Blood and sweat was all he could smell. The only thought that ran through Tristan's mind was how many man met their fates in this opaque and miserable dungeon and if he too would share the same fate.
"You know, it was very foolish of you to loose your head over a girl, especially that silly little thing." Andrea.
"What have you done with her!" Tristan knew he was playing right into his brother's hand, but he could not control the surge of anger that flowed through his body. Women were man's greatest weakness, his demise, and he had fallen in love despite all of this knowledge.
"Oh, the girl?" Johnathan emerged from the shadows and stepped into the stream of light pouring from the single window. His hair was much shorter than Tristan's, Johnathan had always made a point to be different, to stand a part from his twin brother.  "Oh dear brother, she's not to far, just look out the window."  Johnathan strode over and lifted Tristan to his knees, as he lifted his eyes to the high window everything seemed to drain away from his body. Everything faded away, the blood dripping from his mouth, the pain in his rib cage, the sound of carriages and horses traveling by. The only thing that existed was Andrea... her head on a high pike just outside the window.

----------------------------------------------

Should I continue this story???

Summers in Adye (part 1) rough draft

Corbin was so tired, he could barely think clearly. He just wanted to turn back and go home, but he knew Sarah was persistent.

 “Sarah, I don’t think we should be out here right now, its past eleven o’clock, and I have to work tomorrow morning.”

 ‘Ok so if we take a right here then…’

 “SARAH ELIZABETH DAY WILL YOU STOP!”

 Sarah had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she forgotten all about Corbin. He looked quite upset, she could tell from his practically demonic stare.

“Corbin please, I promise this is the last time.”

Corbin knew very well this would not be the last night Sarah climbed through his bedroom window and dragged him on some outrageous adventure. However, summer would be over in four weeks, which meant that school would begin. School never went well for Sarah. She was taunted and teased because of how different she was. It had been that way since she had moved there eight years ago in late July, after her mother’s death. Corbin’s elder brother, David, left that same summer for England to pursue his golfing career. David was more than just a brother to Corbin, he was his best friend, and no one else could understand Corbin except David. So that Summer Corbin, at the age of ten, fell into a depression that worried his parents. He would lock himself in his room, hardly spoke, and refused to interact with the outside world. In a desperate attempt to save their son, Mr. and Mrs. Summers coerced Corbin to volunteer at the library in town. Mr. Day had recently been hired as the librarian of the local, but neglected, library. Corbin at first didn’t want to work at the library, but no one ever ventured there, so it was almost like being alone in his room. However, Mr. Day’s daughter Sarah came to the library everyday and almost always checked out a book.  One day, he saw her reaching for a book she couldn’t reach. He would have helped her, but there was a step stool not too far from her and he was sure she would see it there. However, when looked at her next she had, not very neatly, stacked six or seven books on top of each other and was standing on top of them, with one foot in the air, and reaching with all her might for the book. It was obvious to Corbin that the books weren’t going to hold her for much longer. He ran from behind the counter and dashed down the isle of books, where she had just lost balanced. He got there just in time to, not so gracefully, catch her.  He would never forget the first of many smiles she gave him, nor her excuse as to why she didn’t use the step stool. According to her, the step stool had been rude to her earlier. He could tell that she was different from everybody, besides the fact that she talked to inanimate objects. She dressed unlike any of the girls in town. While the other girls were in dresses and skirts and worrying about which lip gloss to wear, she wore blue jeans, over sized sweatshirts, and sported books like the other girls wore purses. Despite Sarah’s uniqueness, Corbin found himself best friends with her in what seemed to be a matter of days. Once they started school, people rejected and teased her and told her she was ugly. Although Sarah never said anything about it, Corbin knew it bothered her. He was always able to read her like she read all those books in the library.

 So as the wind blew forcefully between them, Corbin couldn’t help but feel bad for her, but he also knew he was going to regret his next few words,

“Fine, but you are taking the blame if we get caught”.

Sarah practically screamed, “I promise! Cross my heart, hope to live, stick a needle in your eye”

“Sarah that’s not how it goes, it’s ‘hope to die, stick a needle in my eye’” Corbin retorted, as they started walking to their destination. As Corbin thought about it, she never told him where they were headed.

“I know, but why on earth would I want to stick a needle in my eye? I would much rather stick it in yours, and I thought you wanted us to come out alive after this adventure?”, Sarah said smiling and giggling. This statement, although said jokingly, scared Corbin.

“Sarah where is tonight’s adventure?”

 She thought about it as she took a sharp right turn at the end of the street, throwing Corbin off.  He had to jog quickly to catch back to her.

“Well to be honest I haven’t a clue. I happened upon this interesting book the other day and in it this man talks about this amazing place!” she explains as she held up a dreadfully old, small, leather bound book.

Corbin’s head began to ache because he knew this was going to be like the last time she “hadn’t a clue, but happened upon this book,” which ended with them in another city and covered in poison ivy. The anguish was written all over his face.  

Slight change in plans

Hi! I hit a road block with this very raw story. However, I have a new shorts blog for a class I am taking, so far it is just free write but the are very interesting free writes. Check it out if you'd like http://bookofshorts.wordpress.com/. Hopefully I can get this reigns back on this story!