All-night Diner

A disheveled, haggard man bundled in a thick coat shuffled with head down into the shabby all-night diner, sliding into the first booth his downcast eyes lit upon. When the waitress came, he muttered a request for coffee without looking up. The waitress sneered slightly at his bent head then left. Some minutes later the man's friend, tall and dressed in clothes he didn't seem entirely comfortable in, came in and sat at the man's booth. He looked worriedly at the man buried in his coat for a minute but smiled brightly at the waitress, who enthusiastically took his order for coffee and pie, and walked away with a vivacious grin. "I'm sorry I didn't come," said the man, still not looking up. His friend stayed silent. Then, with what seemed a supreme effort, the man raised his head and said shyly, "Happy Birthday."

His friend looked at him sympathetically and said, "You don't have to apologize. Just tell me what's wrong. I haven't seen you in four months. Have you found another job yet?" The man grimaced. "I'll take that as a no," said his friend. "Are you broke?" The question turned the atmosphere thicker and the man felt as if he was struggling through gauze to speak.

"That's all that matters, isn't it," stated the man at last without affectation, as if it was an immutable law. His friend shrugged.

"Unfortunately, yes."

The man's eyes wandered to the ceiling. "Isn't it amazing, just awe-inspiringly pathetic, that that's all that really matters to us--when you look at a picture of earth from space I mean?" he wondered aloud.

"I suppose it is," answered his friend disinterestedly, glancing at the waitress that approached with the coffee and pie. She set the coffee down shakily, spilling some on the table and making the man's friend frown. She left extra napkins but did not attempt to clean the spill. "Great place you come to here," expelled the friend sarcastically after she left. The man methodically added one small container of creme and two packets of sugar, then stirred three times and drank as he watched his friend take a bite of pie.

"It's stale," he declared, pushing the plate away. When this small tumult was over and the table quiet again, he said, "Look, I know things are bad right now for you but they'll get better, and you'll find a job."

"All that doesn't matter anymore. It never did."
"Of course it matters."
"I'm tired."
"Everyone's tired."
"No. I'm tired of this whole business, of life. I'm tired of waking up every day. It's so damn exhausting. I mean, I never agreed to any of this, and its become apparent that either I'm crazy or everyone else is."

The man's friend looked nonplussed. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, shaking his head. "You just need to get working and making money again, then you'll be back to normal." He reached across the table and squeezed the man's shoulder.

The man realized then that it was the gesture of diseased solidarity a concentration camp prisoner would give to another when on the verge of total synaptical collapse. Desperation shown in his friend's eyes, held in check by the warm smile he now gave which frightened the man to his core because there were millions more that carried that same smile, and would hold onto it up till the very moment they were led to the gas chambers. It was ironic, the place and the way one could look into the abyss. But there it was, in his friend's open, cracked face. The man began to shake beneath the hand on his shoulder.