One in the Morning at a Random Diner

by Rory Perkins

In downtown Richmond, the only customer apart from a couple in the corner who keep giving him a look that says leave, says this place isn’t meant for you, and maybe they’re right because it’s been ten minutes and he hasn’t ordered anything, hasn’t registered the waitress behind the counter trying to get his attention over the sound of his heartbeat, the heart that woke up whole and broke before breakfast, could not rebuild itself when he found out half his family had died and he realized that that wasn’t saying much because his family was just his wife, who no longer made him happy, and his mother, who was dead, who had been dead, psychologically, for years but now her body had accepted the fact, like it had finally been let in on the joke, only he didn’t see the funny side of a disease like Alzheimer's, or the way it had eaten away at her brain, her ability to think and love and hold onto a single identity, and so he had left home without changing into his suit, without telling his wife goodbye or that he didn’t plan on coming home, and instead set out on an infinite loop of the city because why not, he needed to move, to have a reason to collapse that came from somewhere that wasn’t inside of him, where all his genetic material lived and maybe that was where his mother was now, carried in him in the way he loved the smell of pumpkin and hot baths, the mother who had given him everything but all he could bring to mind was culinary preferences and methods of relaxation, although maybe he was made of other stuff too because she wouldn’t have liked this, the running, the way he refused to stop after mile fifty and his feet began to bleed, would have said you’re pushing yourself too far when really he couldn’t push far enough, through the pain and past the bakery she used to take him to, and maybe he would have shouted at her, how she was only saying that because her life had been too easy, forgetting the child she had lost, how she was going to name his sister after the plant they’d picked on their first holiday together, forgetting how he now couldn’t pass by a field of purple without thinking of a sibling who never existed, who held a piece of their mother in her as he does now, and do they not understand that, the couple in the corner—do they not get that if you wait long enough everyone leaves or dies or goes out on a run and never comes back, but of course they don’t because they have nothing to flee, and so they are here in an all-night cafe getting high while he dips in for a rest, can’t stop, can’t make up his mind what to order but it’s fine because the waitress has given up and gone back to watching the TV, watching the people on the screen move and fight and shout and love as a proxy for reality, but not him, in a minute he will leave, in a minute he will saying fuck you to the teenagers and get back out there for another loop of city, the city that gave him everything which turned out to be nothing, the absence of everything, or maybe he will stay, just for a minute, because now the waitress is coming back, and if he squints she almost looked like his mother had when she was younger, and she is all smiles, saying you look tired dear and would you like a seat dear and what about a slice of pumpkin pie, too dear and yes, maybe that is exactly what he wants and he will never have to leave.

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Rory is a British writer focussing on shorter works. He has been published in Vast Literary Press, SoFloPoJo, Passengers Journal, and Artam's The Face Project (forthcoming). He can be found at @roryperkinswriter on X.