Temporary Address E1C3
By: Arjun Blackwood ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Episode 1: Temporary Stay
Chapter 3: Help Wanted
February 20th, 2024. 8:15 AM.
The chime above the diner door gave its usual tired little jingle as I stepped inside.
Fried eggs and sausages on top of a bed of rice.
Warm air hit my face immediately.
Coffee with tons of creamer.
Butter on pancakes.
Normal.
Which was good.
After yesterday, normal felt medically necessary.
===
The diner was quieter than usual for a Tuesday morning. One old man sat alone near the window with a newspaper folded beside his coffee mug. A couple in business clothes occupied the far booth, both staring at their phones instead of each other.
That was it.
===
Elena looked up from behind the counter while wiping down a stack of menus.
"Oh. You're alive."
I adjusted the strap of my laptop bag.
"Barely."
"How was the lady?"
"Uh, excuse me? I'm the one who got hit."
“Well, she's a 75 year old lady riding a scooter on a dimly lit road.”
“She's fine…” I answered. “How did you know anyway?”
“It's a small town, word spreads fast.” she said with a faint smile.
"So, are you okay?"
Well, apparently collapsing on a public road after barely being hit by who I'm fairly certain was a drunk old lady was enough for strangers to straight up call an ambulance. There was probably a limit to how convincingly someone could downplay that when I think about it.
"I passed out. of hunger."
Elena blinked once.
"You what?"
"Apparently the human body needs things. Food. Water. Sleep. Micronutrients. Very demanding system."
"Ferdinand."
"I'm fine now."
"So you went to the hospital?"
"Clinic. They told me to stop treating my body like an abandoned paper factory."
That got a short laugh out of her.
Good.
If people laughed, situations became less serious. That was a scientific fact.
Probably. I'm not actually sure.
===
I slid into my usual booth by the window and set my laptop bag down.
CheeseBook, generation 8. Pretty old but it still ran fine. Have zero idea what they smoke to name a laptop line “Cheese” but that's the least of my worries.
Elena walked over with a coffee pot already in hand.
"So what exactly happened?" She asked while wiping my table.
"I got dizzy outside the convenience store, was pretty excited to maul my highly discounted extra large spicy chicken bowl. Next thing I know an old lady was threatening to beat me with a stale baguette if I didn't wake up."
"Reasonable response honestly."
"Apparently I looked dead."
She poured coffee into my mug.
"You kind of always look dead."
"Hey, that's just my face. I can't control genetics."
"No, yesterday was apparently advanced dead. You should consider doing acting."
I snorted quietly into the mug.
===
The conversation faded for a moment while Elena took an order from the couple near the back. I opened my laptop out of habit more than intention. The screen lit up with unfinished tutoring notes I hadn't touched since I passed out last night.
My cursor blinked accusingly. “We'll deal with that later I guess.”
I minimized the window.
The diner remained unusually quiet.
===
Elena returned a minute later, leaning slightly against the edge of the booth.
"Slow morning," i said.
"Yeah."
"Feels weird."
"Rain scares people away."
I glanced outside. The sky was flat gray, though weirdly calming. I can see the rainwater still clinging to the sidewalks from earlier.
"Back at my old place this would've been a full house already."
"City brunch crowd?"
I let out a tired laugh.
"Brunch people are terrifying." I answered with a slight fear in my voice.
"Correct answer. Horror movie."
"They are somehow angrier than normal customers."
"Because they woke up early on purpose. With a mission."
"Omelette with no yolk, hot iced coffee, Cheese burger with extra pickles but they get angry that a cheese burger has cheese in it, or even the pickles they requested themselves. Just… bizarre things."
Without really noticing it, I kept talking.
"Dinner customers get tired. Brunch customers arrive already emotionally prepared for violence. Especially couples. Couples at brunch fight over insane things."
"Like?"
"Toast."
"Toast?"
“Toast.”
"I once watched two people nearly end a relationship over sourdough vs White bread."
Elena laughed.
"No, seriously. I brought the wrong toast by accident and suddenly I was witnessing the collapse of the Merovingian dynasty. A four year relationship was collapsing just three feet away from where I was standing."
"Damn."
"There were tears involved."
"Over bread."
"Over communication apparently. No, no.. the bread was symbolic."
Another laugh.
I caught myself smiling widely. Open expression, full energy.
It felt strange.
Not unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.
===
"Alright. So in short you worked in a diner too?" Elena asked.
"Yeah. Small place downtown. Mostly breakfast and lunch."
"How long?"
"Almost six years."
"That's long enough to develop permanent psychological damage."
“You better believe it.” my voice slightly trembled.
"I still hear ticket printers in my sleep sometimes."
"See?"
I leaned back slightly.
"The brunch rushes were horrible. We'd get slammed from opening until like two in the afternoon. Everybody moving around each other like a botched traffic simulation from an undergraduate college student."
As I spoke, my hands started moving unconsciously. Waving around, making signs and shapes to help punctuate my speech.
"You learn the entire floor layout by muscle memory after a while right? Table six always wanted extra napkins. Table eight never read the menu properly. Table three had a kid that threw crayons at people."
"Every diner has one of those."
"And the kitchen line cooks communicated entirely through yelling. Like, speak clearly dude."
"That's universal too."
"I dropped six plates once because somebody shouted behind me."
"Only six? Rookie numbers."
"One of them had hot soup."
"Okay, nevermind, that's respectable."
We laughed.
Actually laughed.
The sound surprised me enough that I immediately took another sip of coffee to cover it.
"Sorry," I said, calming myself. "I sound insane."
"No, no, no…" Elena replied. "You sound like an alien named food service."
That one landed harder than it should have.
===
A customer walked in. Elena straightened automatically.
"Duty calls."
"Go forth commander."
"Try not to medically collapse while I'm gone. I don't want you to summon an angry grandma this early."
"No promises."
She pointed at me briefly before heading toward the entrance.
===
I spent some time watching the rain-streaked windows for a while after that.
The strange thing was I just realized I hadn't thought about my old diner job this much in months.
Not properly.
Usually when I remembered anything about the city, it came back all at once. Noise. Crowded trains. Rent payments. Exhaustion.
But talking about the diner specifically felt different.
Smaller.
More manageable.
Like remembering a war entirely through stories about burnt pancakes covered with ketchup.
===
Eventually Elena returned carrying her own mug of coffee.
Then, after glancing around the nearly empty diner, she slid into the seat across from me.
That was new. I thought to myself.
Usually she kept moving.
Counter.
Kitchen.
Tables.
Coffee.
Repeat.
Now she just sat there.
"What?" I curiously asked.
"It's dead anyway."
"You're the owner and manager but, are you cool with that? How about the others?"
"Everyone is in the back, cleaning or pretending inventory is real work."
"Fair enough."
She took a sip of coffee.
"So you really lived most of your adult life in the city?"
"Mostly."
"Couldn't be me."
"So you're from the city too?"
"Yeah, but I liked it there. Big difference."
I tilted my head slightly.
"You say that like I escaped prison."
"Didn't you?"
I opened my mouth.
Paused.
"...Maybe a little."
Elena smiled faintly into her coffee.
"Moved here five years ago."
"Whoa, why?"
"Got tired."
"Of?"
"Everything."
She looked out the window for a second before continuing.
"I was trying to become a famous dancer. Modern interpretive stuff mostly."
"Seriously?"
"What, you can't picture me as artistic?" She waved her hand with the effortless elegance of an artist.
"No, I can. I'm just trying to imagine interpretive dance and my brain keeps generating stock footage. Like I'm talking to Getty Images right now."
"Rude."
"Accurate though."
She laughed softly.
"I used to work three jobs at one point. Morning café shift, evening restaurant shift, rehearsals at night."
"That sounds horrible."
"It was super fun at first."
"At first is doing heavy lifting there."
"Yeah."
Her expression shifted slightly. Not sad exactly.
Distant.
"There was this tiny underground theater downtown," she said. "Could barely fit twenty people inside. We performed there once after rehearsing for like two months straight."
"How'd it go?"
"Audience of nine people. Two fell asleep." She clapped silently.
I burst out laughing.
"Brother. That's brutal."
"One guy got up halfway through to answer a phone call, never came back."
"Okay that's devastating." I said while gathering myself.
"The artistic community is built on emotional resilience and cheap wine."
"Mostly cheap wine… probably."
"No. Definitely mostly cheap wine."
===
The old man near the window stood up to pay his bill.
Elena waved at him without getting up.
“Just go home Jonathan. Keep your money.”
He waved back.
Small town.
I still wasn't fully used to that.
===
"So why stay here?" I asked.
"Here?"
"Yeah. This town."
She shrugged lightly.
"It's quieter."
"That's it?"
"People mean what they say here."
That answer caught me slightly off guard.
"In the city everybody was always trying to become something," she continued. " And although I love it, every conversation felt like networking. Every person felt temporary."
I stared down at my coffee.
That part sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
"And here?"
"Here I know my neighbors. I know which regular likes extra pickles. I know the mailman by name."
"Sounds dangerously wholesome."
"I know. Terrifying right?"
I smiled weakly.
Then after a pause:
"I don't think I ever planned on staying here this long."
"But you did."
"Yeah."
The word settled between them quietly.
Not heavy.
Just honest.
===
Elena tapped a finger against her mug.
"Actually," she said, "speaking of staying here too long."
I narrowed my eyes immediately.
"That sounds ominous."
"One of our morning staff put in her two weeks yesterday."
"Congratulations to her?"
"We need somebody to replace her."
I blinked once.
Then pointed at myself.
"Why are you looking at me?"
"You already come here every morning anyway."
"That's different. I'm professionally unemployed."
"You literally have diner experience."
"Unfortunately true."
"Morning shift ends before lunch rush too. So you'd still have time for your tutoring thing."
I stared at her for a moment.
Is this some kind of joke? Is she teasing me?
"Wait. Are you serious?" I finally asked.
"Yeah."
"About hiring me?"
"You know how to carry plates without exploding. That's already above average."
"Your standards are… concerningly low."
"Welcome to food service in small town."
===
I looked down at the table.
The idea felt strangely unreal.
Not impossible.
Just...
Distant.
Like someone describing a future version of me instead of the current one.
"You'd start in about two weeks," Elena continued. "March fourth probably. Gives her time to finish out the schedule."
March fourth.
A date.
Specific.
My brain immediately started calculating things without permission.
Alarm times.
Schedules.
Shifts.
Laundry.
Routine.
It had been months since I had thought that way.
"You don't have to answer immediately," Elena said.
"No!"
I exhaled quietly.
"No, no… I mean... yeah. Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yes."
A small smile appeared on her face.
"Cool."
That was it.
No dramatic speech.
No life changing music.
No emotional breakthrough.
Just coffee. Rain. A nearly empty diner.
And somehow, against all odds, a future appointment.
===
That night, I opened the calendar app on my phone for the first time in weeks.
Most of February was very obviously empty.
Blank squares.
Untouched days.
I stared at March 4th for a few seconds before tapping it and typing:
First shift. 7:00 AM.
I stared ahead at my reflection on the mirror.
My face.
My messy hair.
My…
Future.
Then I looked at it.
Reading it again and again.
And for the first time in a while, the upcoming weeks might no longer look completely identical.
===
SNS:
@GrumpyTeflonPan:
Unemployment got me doing side quests like reorganizing the same 7 files on my desktop.Actually, might've gotten a job today.
Wish me luck! 🤞
February 20th 2024 • Yapper for YouPhone
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My place when I first came in. I swear that's not me, I covered it the day after.:
