Absolutely Curtains

snippet 16

It’s after 3 in New York City. 

The moon hides behind peaked rooftops 

on a cloudless night. 

Peter is sitting in the centermost booth of a 24 hour diner, right underneath its gold, paste on letters. 

Moonstruck Diner.

The O’s overlap.

This is a warm summer night in a city where the heat settles in the cracks on the sidewalks and stays until early October. 

Girls wear pretty strapless dresses and the boys wear short sleeves.

Peter is wearing black pants and a button down shirt. 

Thick white cotton.

He’s sickly and pallid looking

The bags under his eyes are the same shade of gray as his leather shoes.

He’s seen better days.

There’s a pretty tan couple ordering off the menu, smiling with white teeth. 

Peter, who’s been staring at them slack-jawed, 

lonely, thinks, 

he doesn’t even have anything in common with their incisors. 

He’s a vampire. His are yellow and serrated.

He’s bored. He goes to work, he comes home. He eats now and then. 

Peter doesn’t live for the hunt. He’s been rummaging through hospital dumpsters for ten odd years. 

Thirty. 

Whatever.

Peter stirs a flimsy, silver spoon around in a white mug. 

He accidentally tells the waitress that he misses coffee. She gives him a funny look, 

so Peter turns away to look at green, paper napkin curtains on the windows. 

His eyes feel heavy. 

He’s tired and hungry. 

Peter was a chef. Is still a chef. He misses food.

The couple in the next booth over shovel eggs and hash browns into their mouths. 

They wipe egg with toast. 

Peter wonders what he has to look forward to.

A blood baggy, type A, warmed by old sun. 

Author's Note

{ wrote this quickly and out of boredom }

Reviews

[Davi Rodrigues]

It does look like you wrote this quickly. It's pretty good, though.