Work Text:
It was late at night, where it was all dark except for the bright diner, Phillies. Behind the bar, a tired man, a soda jerk, stood hunched over. He was tired, very tired. It was almost closing time, it wasn’t a 24 hour diner, but he was too nice, too exhausted to kick them out. There were three people in there. A woman in red with some man next to her with another stranger in the corner. The couple looking pair were talking about their day, their story, or just how they ended up in this dismal place. The lights couldn’t even cheer up the settling sense of loneliness. “My girlfriend left me and I, I just need a cup of coffee. I wanted to propose, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” “I just got fired for trying to get the same pay as my male coworker.”
The stranger in the corner merely stared out the window, out to the dark street. The soda jerk sighed. No one came here without a reason, without a sad memory. The stranger continued to stare, almost unaware that he was in a public place, but he sat listening to everything, the quiet hum of music, the two spilling their words and mixed up jumbles, the coffee dripping out of canisters. He couldn’t believe what he did, what he did to his family, what he did that ruined his life. As he stared out, he knew that he would be coming back later, maybe everyday for the next week or so.
The soda jerk could tell, too. He worked here for so long, he could tell almost why each person came. The same little cliches, the same little patterns, both always repeated. The couples were laughing, bonding, a beacon of connection in a house of loneliness. The stranger couldn’t do anything but stare out of the window, getting lost in his head, lost in the accusing thoughts. Everyone here would pass and leave, some staying in this world of separation longer than others.
Nobody else entered the diner that night. It seemed that there wasn’t that much depression in the world or that there was just other clusters of the same old despair. But something else happened. The couple before a small stream of conversation exploding with life and happiness of all things, filling the small dinner with a feeling the stranger envied. Why were was a relationship blooming right in front of him as his was, well, rather not to be talked about. Self pity and loathing radiated from him, but the couple was oblivious to everything but each other.
Eventually their cups were cold and empty while the couple was full of warmth and life. The stranger’s cup was filled with something stronger than coffee, not that it helped. The soda jerk took a rag up and cleaned the counter probably for the tenth time this night. It wasn’t like there was anything better for him to do. On downbeat nights like these, which was the majority of the nights, where the diner wasn’t bursting with life, there wasn’t people to be served or anyone that wanted to strike up a meaningless conversation. While as much as he wanted to go home and sleep for the same day tomorrow, he loved watching loneliness leave and something else take it’s place.
Maybe an hour went by, maybe a few minutes, but then, it happened. A natural closing.
The couple left, obviously going to meet again, then again, until they fall into a twisted weave of a relationship, first of shared pain, then of shared pain. The stranger stayed a bit longer then checked the time. Too late, but still too early. He wanted to stay, wanted to sit and think longer, but he was almost ready to face his problems, face the disaster he caused. Then the soda jerk was left alone in the cafe, alone in this place of being alone. He sighed softly, clicked the lights off, and locked the doors as he left, ready to return the next day on, then the days after that. And suddenly, the dark night was accompanied by a dark diner.