[Berrs]
SECTION ONE: conversation in a diner
[We share a heart / you close your eyes / i’m in the dark. — Conversations in a Diner, dvsn.]
I am the last person sitting next to the glass wall for the fifth time this week: melancholia branches out around me like mist from dry ice. The street is all dark closed buildings surrounding the c h e r r y red road. I wonder if anyone wonders at all. The couple exiting the diner (they thought they would be the last customer today) smiles at each other, not realising they have stepped into another world. A person standing outside in the closed night looks up at the sky as if it has opened for them.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to crave winter like this. Cold, distant, and on the edge of every closed window’s frosted dew / numb fingers holding up fleetingly warm cups / classical music as you cross the distance between your bed and the couch / wondering if snow can become your happiness / wondering if snow can m e l t around your happiness / standing outside an antique shop, watching a vinyl rotate / standing inside a funeral, watching your grandmother burn in her sleep.
Maybe I shouldn’t crave winter this much.
Two years ago, winter came with milk chocolates and warmed it into a hot drink for me. My phone was a reigning beauty, calls chirping in at the rise of the bright winter sun. At that time, all the conversations used to happen outside the diner, on the soft pink roads. My shoes, his shoes, her shoes: walking, loving: the centre of t w o triangles. Sunsets broke on them, clouds gathering at the soles. Our one-way destination was somehow my home.
You go, I’ll stay.
And I said to them if I say to them, “go”, they have to stay. We used to sit together and measure the lengths of our hair, the ends separated like the stems of individual cherries. I suddenly remember my neighbour: suicide and soft drinks, and the room in the next building was left alone since as a space for his g h o s t to haunt.
“The diner’s going to be closed in a few minutes.” The waitress tells me with a polite smile, but the irritation under it does not remain ignorant to me.
I suppose I’ve truly become today’s last customer.
Special Edition. Contributers’ Compilation
Painting by. Mike Kowalski
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