.38 Special played on the overhead speakers while he sat, contemplating what to write next. The restraunt was filled with groups of people talking, eating, laughing. He sat alone. At a high top table, watching it all. His food was nearly gone, more a means to sustain existence than something he wanted.
Across the room, he watched as two men, dressed in business finery gnawed at the grindage in front of them. Their conversation drifted between the hot new secretary at the firm and how best to defend their latest traffic accident case in order to get the big pay day.
Next to them, an overweight man in a wheelchair, much to young to be forced into such an existence fiddles with his phone while the lady next to him gets him settled before ordering their food. His mood is ambivalent, almost as if he has resigned himself to live whatever life has thrown his way. The writer contemplates such a life, and wonders if he could ever be ok with just being. Probably not, he decides and moves his attention elsewhere.
A waitress, familiar with him, walks up and asks if he needs anything. He welcomes the interruption and smiles as he asks her about the sticker she is wearing on her shirt.
“It’s for a to-go order. It says, Jason’s mom.” She answers.
“But, shouldn’t it say Stacey’s mom? I hear she has it going on.” He counters.
“That’s why I’m going to name my daughter Stacey.” She grabs his cup and refills it.
As she walks away, he ponders the time, and realizing lunch time has come to an end, he packs his stuff up and heads for the door. Another lunch has come to a close, and another hour has passed where he finds himself more the observer and narrator than the partaker.
And for him, that’s ok.
A Flash of Fiction... 