– Dylan Brannen

I could feel myself screaming, but I was deaf to what was actually coming out of my mouth. What I heard was something along the lines of, “I’ll, uh, have a cup of coffee.”

“And you, miss,” said the waitress. “That all for you, too?”

This is about where I stopped paying attention to the voices: that of the waitress, of Amy, of all the other patrons. No, all I heard was the buzzing of at least a dozen-or-so flies. I couldn’t stand the sound of their wings, the sight of them landing on people and their food… No, the worst of it was when I felt them land upon me, especially my hands.

It’s not important how it felt, you barely feel it anyway; the sensation of their unperceivable impact against your skin, no, not the tickle of their multiple legs in locomotion across your body. They were disgusting, that’s it. Filthy creatures. Landing on you, vomiting up their not-quite-digested meal, slurping it back up to begin the process again, like some sort of arthropod cows chewing cud in a toothless, sucking mouth.

I lifted my hand and shooed it away just in time to see the waitress walk away from our table to get the pot of coffee. Momentarily distracted by her butt, I looked on for a second or so before turning back to Amy. She had been weeping nearly half an hour before, keeping me from my 11 PM coffee. Nothing important, at least not so important that she could cry for any more than a few minutes over it.

Now it’s half an hour ago and she’s crying. A hug, an awkward friendly glance. I make a joke, but only to mask the sorry fact that I resent knowing nothing of the bliss that is cohabitation with one’s lover. Her and her boyfriend have been living with her parents since he’d been kicked out or left on his own or something equally unimportant.

Curlicues of smoke twirled out of my nostrils, as if they wished to punctuate my speech with visible commas and full stops. On occasion, they would seem to form parentheses around my head as I made remarks that had more to them than I was saying…

“Well, of course he feels bad about not working while you and your family support him,” I had told her without adding, “but he could at least TRY to get his parents to sign off on a work permit!”

“Well, maybe you two need some space,” I chimed in, while my inner monologue chirped, “You know, like maybe making him move back into his place?”

But what do I know? I’ve never lived with anyone I ever slept with, so any attempt at “real” advice would be as helpful as giving directions to a part of town you know like the back of your head. In a lot of ways, I envied them, if only because of the sex, but I was mostly left feeling sorry for two people I once saw to be an inseparable match that only had to face the gauntlet of college.

That was half an hour ago. Now we’re in the diner, a place that was once a bastion for smokers like me, drinking coffee and talking about nothing. Not that I mind not talking about anything of any “real” weight. Not at all. I prefer it to the alternative, discussing issues of importance. That sort of thing only irritates me when I’m trying to reach nirvana in a dive like this. Insecure as always, backing away from my life, I try to get away without even leaving, but I’m pulled back too soon by reality.

Back at the diner, as Amy and I talked, a seemingly innocuous smile drew its way across my lips as Amy continued talking… Everyone else seemed to be looking at me, not staring, but at right about the same time a few people looked over, right at me for a second or so and turned away, then turned back as if they needed to check on it. They heard it and I did not, but I didn’t need to hear it, I felt it.

I could feel myself laughing.