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Sarah's Diner by Zachariah Stone The fading, ember sunset stabbed its yellow streaks through the mashed potato clouds. The sun, melting lightly on the hilltops like a pat of butter, waved its final farewell. I was hungry. So hungry was I that I did what I never do. I ate at a roadside diner. Seven days traveling on foot builds quite an appetite within a man. Even a man such as I, high class, rich, handsome, born with a silver spoon, fork, and knife -- infant mouth crusted with caviar. However, when the sight of rabbits and squirrels become enough to make your stomach growl, it is time to lower your standards. The diner was a ragged old place, broken with years, and coated with Father Time's dandruff. It sat like a wooden corpse in a desert graveyard. A yellow light burned within, and again I thought of butter. I had to eat! I made my way past battered cars and rusty trucks, as the wind attempted a free sandblasting on their painted skin, without asking the owners first. The neon sign, that half-heartedly displayed the diner's name in the window, sizzled like a steak with a pinkish color of medium-rare. The sign's missing letters made me halt abruptly: Sarah Di e Slightly amusing. I entered the diner without further hesitation. The door announced my arrival in a creaking whine, accompanied by a popping sound of ancient bones and hinges. I could see -- no, I could feel, heads turn to gaze upon me. The smell of age and sweat mixed itself with the ghostly smoke of cigarettes and fat-fried food, like a trailer park tycoon's idea of a marketable perfume. They just kept staring. I looked down to see if I had missed any spots of blood on my shirt or hands. There was none. I was becoming too paranoid. Murder will do that to a man! I sat at the bar, deliberately hunching forward and ducking my head to hide my face; eyes delving into the pattern on the bar; an ugly pattern of crimson red and white-gray streaks, causing it to look like one of those pathetic Magic Eye pictures. Irritation! Where did this emotion come from so suddenly? I greeted the feeling like an old friend dropping in suddenly, for a visit; to stay as long as it wanted, with or without my permission. I felt my black hair prickle-up upon my scalp with a squirming life of it's own. I hurriedly straitened a dusty room within my mind and turned down the covers that shielded my sensitivity to this emotion. A voice interrupted my thoughts. "What can I getcha, Darlin'?" it spewed, grating its sound upon me into little shreds of sour-cheese words, and distorted slightly with the squishing slosh of chewing gum. Chomp! Chomp! I looked up and winced at "Barbie" gone bad. Sarah Die! The waitress' "natural" blonde hair with "natural" black roots frayed up from her scalp in tiny, chaotic, curls; looking as if a poodle had died atop her head. Her eyelids, like thin slices of blue sky, fluttered quickly, flapping eyelash wings, like prostitute butterflies, weighed down in a heavy crust. I was surprised she could move them at all! My mind stuttered. The words, however, came out smoothly. "What's good here?" I asked, as I scanned her too-tight clothing, so stained over that it made her look as if she had just returned from a battle, fought with ketchup packets and globs of Crisco. I was still hungry! Chomp! Chomp! "The chicken-fried steak is pretty good!" she drawled. Chomp! She leaned in toward me, and my nostrils greeted an unwanted odor of Jim Beam, spiked with Juicy Fruit gum. Irritation was making itself at home -- and had invited other friends. Chomp! I greeted anger. Chomp! I stared at the knife that lay beside my plate with an inviting glimmer of innocence. Chomp! (Is that blood, sir?) I touched the knife gently, calmly. Chomp! Chomp! I gripped it, ever so lightly! Chomp! Slurp! Chomp! I gripped it tightly! Chomp! Slurp! Slop! (I know what you've done!) Chomp! I picked it up slowly, without a shake. Chomp! (I know!) Chomp! I smiled sweetly, Chomp! (Evil man!) Slurp! Smack! and ordered the chicken-fried steak. The End
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