The ancient, dusty diner was once a favorite of yours, and maybe even your parents. Or was it your teacher? Your…neighbor? Regardless, anticipation plays at the edges of your awareness, your feet swinging from the bar stool at the front, where you sit alone. The place had definitely seen better days, but still held a quiet, neon charm – the jukebox in the corner softly glowed and sounds of the kitchen wafted through to the front dining. It hit you all at once; your feet stop swinging. There is no door.
Upright
Amid the late-night sounds, a fork lightly hits ceramic. The hair on the back of your neck stands up – you spin around on your stool. In the back corner, where the colorful string lights don’t quite reach, sits the shape of a person in the crackled booth. “Oh, come on,” comes a voice, vaguely familiar but somehow unsettling, like it knew to mimic something familiar. “You aren’t gonna get fed at all that way,” the…man? spoke again. Frozen, you grip the edge of the bar. “That’s what you came here for, right?” And then, all at once, you stride to the edge of his booth almost entirely outside your own volition. But you wanted to. You really wanted to. Something gave you permission to stop holding back.
Reversed
The man sits there in a three-piece suit that is almost – but not quite – too big for him. He hovers between an air of carelessness, and a refusal to care too much. It all looks expensive, except for his tie – that isn’t quite tied correctly, or the stripes weren’t obeying the rules that stripes ought. “Why do stripes need rules, anyway?” he speaks again, shoveling a fork full of pancakes into his – there is no mouth, no face, not even a head, just the deep, dark shape of where all of those were expected, even in spite of the pendant lamp illuminating the plate. “I’d love to hear your theory,” he says through chewing you can’t make out in the black. “Shock me. I dare you,” he adds with a laugh. “Or don’t. I guess.”
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