10:46 PM
The diner was quiet as usual. Only clanks of plates and
cops and cutlery being washed in the kitchen sink can be heard, the employees
rushing to get home before dawn breaks. It was almost three in the morning when
the man wearing a dark green coat that hung over his broad shoulders glanced at
his watch. He then took a sip from his warm dark coffee, his eyes watching the
cream coloured counter as a wrinkly hand wiped it with a dirty towel. He was a
regular, and although he did not initiate conversation with the middle aged
waitress, she appreciated his company for they do not usually get welcomed
customers at this time of the shift.
"Still haven't found what you’re looking for?"
she asked him, her small glasses on the edge of her nose bridge.
"Wasn't expecting it tonight, anyway," the man
answered, trying to assure himself more than the other. The rectangular pin on
her chest suggests her name was Griselda, but he never called her by name.
"But you come anyway," she grinned.
The man took some time to answer, considering the reasons
he comes to this diner every night. Finally, he replied simply with
"Hope."
His facial structure lighted up as he looked up at the
television on the wall when a short familiar melody played. He had wide eyes
and a high, slightly dented nose, his lips dry and dark from the cigarettes
above a goatee. His dark brown hair was tucked under a baseball cap, the ends
sticking out at the back unkempt. The screen showed the weather broadcast, a
re-run from the evening news. The typical pre-autumn weather - cloudy and rainy
in some areas, windy in others - was predicted.
"Looks like it's gonna keep drizzling this whole
week," Griselda mentioned. "It's either I get sick or waste money on
cabs. The world these days just ain't for someone like me."
"It never had been for me," the man thought as he took another sip of
his coffee.
---
---
"But you just got home!" Heidi's mother wailed
when she said she was going out for fresh air. The drizzle up ahead did not
worry her - a sturdy umbrella was in her hands, ready to fight the wet combat.
"I won't be long, mother," Heidi replied, pushing
her dirty blonde hair back, the soft ends falling on the back of her
khaki-coloured coat. She wriggled her feet in her boots.
"Don't come back too late!" Heidi's mother told
before she stepped out of the house.
"No worries," Heidi smiled. "I'll be back
before midnight."
It was 3.24am when Heidi found the diner she used to hang
out with all her friends. Her smile was a bit too bright in comparison to the
crowd - if it could be called that -when she entered. She kept her umbrella in
the bin by the door, reminiscing the old times when she was a teenager. Heidi
and her friends hung out here almost everyday - Marissa, Leslie, Frank and
Willy. The five of them had always had each other, until they went to different
colleges and lost contact.
Heidi took a seat on the counter, smiling at the middle
aged lady dressed in a pink checkered dress, an apron tied to her waist,
glasses on the edge of her nose bridge.
"What can I help you with?" the lady asked in a
friendly manner, forming a curve with her lips.
"Umm, coffee would be nice," Heidi replied.
"No sugar."
A man on her right coughed. She glanced at him, but decided
to ignore the person, seeing how suspicious he looked. As her attention went
back to the waitress, the man pulled his baseball cap lower.
"Do you still have Old Jenny's apple pie?" Heidi
asked.
“That's a classic," the waitress replied. "Rarely
anyone orders those anymore. You're lucky I'm on shift tonight, or else you
wouldn't get it the same no more. Not like before."
The old lady swiftly made Heidi's coffee and served it, then
made her way to the kitchen. Heidi watched as the lady worked on the kitchen
surface. Her attention diverted to the man from before as he came closer to
her. He left two seats in between them, not looking her in the eye. Heidi
looked at him curiously.
"Can I help you?" Heidi asked, rising her
eyebrows. The man glanced at her, slightly surprised and shook his head. He
took a sip of his coffee calmly. Heidi turned her mouth slightly.
"Do you come here often?"
The man did not look up when he replied. "Every
night."
"Wow," Heidi replied. She was not curious why.
"I used to come here every day, too," she told him. "It was
years ago though, when I was still a kid. Although I don't look it, but I'm
turning 32 this year. I feel so old."
"As vain as ever," the man said under his breath.
"Excuse me?" Heidi asked, but the man only shook
his head, a smirk on his face. Heidi decided to ignore him and went on. She was
in the mood to talk tonight. Maybe he was not the perfect company, but she had
wanted to come back to this diner since the day she graduated college. And now
that she's here, all the memories made came running through her mind like a bullet
train.
"At that time The Beatles was everyone's
favourite," Heidi reminisced out loud. "They had a hit, Golden
Slumbers. I knew all the words. Sang it everyday with my friends. I can't
remember much but the first few lines. 'Once
there was--'"
"'--a way back
home,'" the man sang with her. The two stopped singing and looked at
each other. While the man looked contently into Heidi's eyes, as if looking and
digging for something, Heidi only smiled in amazement.
"You know the song!"
"It's the story of my life," the man told,
looking back at his coffee. Just then, Griselda came back from the kitchen, a
plate of a miniature warm apple pie in her hands, two forks by its side. She
set the plate between the two knowingly.
"Enjoy."
Heidi felt warmth coming up to her face but the man ignored
it. When the lady passed, Heidi took one of the forks and sliced through the
pastry. "You should try this," she told the man, shoving the piece
into her mouth. "It's the best pie in the whole wide world."
"I would know," the man replied. Heidi did not
know how to respond. He had tasted it before? He must have been around for a
long time.
"What is the
story of your life, anyway?" Heidi decided to change the topic.
"If you can't tell, I'm slightly trapped."
Heidi had heard those words before. "I'm trapped. Nowhere to go."
"No way to go back home," the man and Heidi said
simultaneously. They looked at each other, and suddenly they were brought back
to sixteen years ago when they said the same things at the same counter,
sharing the same pie.
"If you're not around,
Heidi, I wouldn't know where to go," the man had said, then still just a boy. "You're my way home."
"Frank," Heidi whispered, looking closely at the
unshaved face. Had he really lost his way? In the end he came back here, in
case someone came to save him.
Frank smiled, his dimples showing through the goatee. “I
miss home."
---
thank you to yen fern for helping me out with this. inspired by a few things : a Japanese movie called "Golden Slumbers", the song itself, and also Angus Stone's Monsters.
Labels: inspirations, slice-of-life
Leave a comment ? (0)