Gender: Female
Status: Single
Age: 103
Sign: Scorpio
Country: US
Signup Date: 12/5/2006
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Monday, May 28, 2007
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 Ghosts By Rubber John
Not ghosts in the literal sense of course, but metaphorical.
I'm talking about gross encounters of the awkward kind that haunt you throughout your life. Unwanted memories that visit you when you're at your most vulnerable. To torment and aggravate like juveniles in the schoolyard, bullying you into a state of total embarrassment and regret - refusing to go away.
Remember the time your mother caught you masturbating?
Or the time you asked that slightly plumping but infertile female friend when she was expecting the baby that she wasn't pregnant with?
What about the time you offered to pull the stray, inch-long hair from your date's upper lip, only to find that it was actually attached?
It was to be a party to celebrate the grand reopening of Marco's Café, unveiling three months of refurbishment following a random visit from a threatening health inspector. We regulars were certainly going to miss the old greasy food, broken crockery and rotten furniture that we'd become accustomed to.
Quite often the three of us delude each other into thinking that we are 'hip', and as Marco suggested fancy dress for the big night, we prepared hip costumes to suggest as such.
Rob went as a mental patient complete with straight jacket and everything, but once at the party he got really drunk, really quickly on vodka and orange and decided to strip off his clothes— for one very unimpressed female patron— exposing the large yellow stain on the front of his white underpants for all to see.
And yes…. photos were taken.
The clothes Martin wore were his usual apparel of blue jeans, black t-shirt and brown shoes. He just looked like his regular self— except his face had been coloured completely black with two crooked red stripes on both of his cheeks, angled from the corners of his mouth to his ears.
Martin had gone as the A-Team van.
He would have come out of the situation relatively unscathed too had it not been for the fact that he was supposed to attend a job interview the following morning and realised that he had used a permanent black marker to colour his face.
And me….
Having dressed as a Droog from A Clockwork Orange, I innocently put my bowler hat down on the edge of the griddle that was still hot from cooking burgers for the party guests. The hat ignited, spread fire across the entire kitchen and through to the dining area, scattering the reopening party, damaging the newly refurbished café and everything in it, and ultimately putting Marco out of business.
This ghost has now joined the gang at the front of the giant conga line that now boogies its way through my thoughts, tonight and for the rest of my tortured life.
Maugham's Diner By Kim Jong-il
I'm jumping out of my skin, jumping straight through the goddamn roof. Stop at Maugham's. I'll stop at Maugham's.
"Morris! We've been expecting you."
"Hey, Les," I say. Maugham's: the only diner within fifty miles. Gustavo asks me why I stop here every week and I tell him because it's the only goddamn restaurant with eggs that taste like a hen's ass, sausage the color of wet cement, and coffee thick enough to grout your bathroom. Then he laughs his Chicano-snicker and leaves me be. Until the next time he asks me why I stop at Maugham's every week.
"Is that Morris?" Peter Maugham sticks his head out the door to the kitchen. "You're an hour late, boss. We almost closed up!" He points at his wristwatch. From the radio dial in the cab I know it's close to three a.m. The Maughams were expecting me around two.
"Yeah," I say. "Traffic, you know." Leslie pours me a cup of her trademark coffee. It's three in the morning on a Wednesday and she's still got the Tammy-Faye makeup mask of a harlot, her graying hair done up in what I can only describe as a mock-beehive. I take a sip and it coats my tongue like plastic wrap. Peter has already put the eggs and sausage on the griddle.
"So tell me, Morris, what you hauling this week?" Peter nods towards the back of my truck.
"Toys. From a port on the West Coast to the General Mills factory in Missouri. You know, the shit they put in cereal boxes for kids." I can smell the eggs, and Leslie goes to check on them.
"Like from the Chinese?" Peter says, and I look at him, scraping the coffee off my tongue with my teeth.
"Yeah. Probably from the Chinese. Maybe the Thais or the Koreans. But it doesn't much matter."
"They're all the same anyway," Peter laughs, "I can't tell those Chinamen apart. I guess their little hands are good with plastics and electronics and such." Peter refreshs my coffee and I watch it slide slowly out the coffee pot and into my mug.
"Actually they're all very distinct cultures, Pete. That's like saying the French and the Germans are all the same."
"Ah hell, then they're all the same too." He waits a beat. "Hey I read an interesting article. Apparently the Chinamen are responsible for global warming. Must be all two billion of them breathing in all the oxygen."
Leslie comes out of the kitchen, the hen's ass eggs and the wet cement sausage steaming on the plate in her hands. I pour half the cup of coffee down my throat to coat my stomach and grab a fork.
"The best damn part of my week, right here," and they smile when I say this. The egg crunches under my fork, sounding like a boot on gravel. I spike it and stick it in my mouth with a bite of toast.
"Honey, I was just telling Morris here about how the Chinamen are using up all the oxygen and causing global warming." A bite of sausage with a swig of the tar coffee. I always thought the problem with Peter Maugham was that he read too much.
"Oh yeah, it's terrible," Leslie chimes in. She rests a hand on Peter's. They'll be up in three hours to serve breakfast. Wonder if they'll even sleep. "So, Morris, how are you?"
"I'm great, Les. Just great." She goes to refresh my coffee and I shake her off. Been drinking coffee since I left California and too much will give me the shakes. I always know my limits. "Can't complain about nothing."
"Well that's good Morris. That's real good." Leslie watches me take my last bites.
"Ok, folks," I say, lifting myself off the stool and wiping my lips with a greasy napkin. "I gotta get back on the road. Deadlines to meet." I clear my throat a little.
"Okay," Peter says. "Okay, Morris." He pats me on the cheek twice. "You take care of yourself."
"For Christ's sake, Pete, I'll be back in a week." Peter shakes my hand, Leslie winks at me, and I exit the diner. Run the load, sleep for a day, then turn it around and do it all again. Yup, the best damn part of my week.
Neon Smiles
By Mo Ali
The angular cars outside are long dead, beneath their bodies things are squirming still. No-one's been here for a time.
The door falls back surprised as you place your palm against it gently, held there only by cobwebs. The sound is deafening, and an army of dust motes rises up as glass blossoms and fragments.
Inside the smell of old water greets you like an absent friend. Perhaps it's the acoustics, an echo, the sound of the door dying, but you can make out voices now.
Conversations. Music and laughter. Lovemaking and arguing.
A scream that is sudden and bloody and then nothing.
All quiet.
You step forward toward the counter with its empty seats. Light winks at you from the shadows, chrome and glass and plastic.
You reflection is warped and distorted in this place, leering back at you from all corners as shapes form around you, fluttering sounds that tickle the back of your neck or brush your arms without warning.
The smell gets stronger the deeper you go, like turpentine and warm blood, clogging your throat as you spin, disoriented, looking for the fallen door. A creaking sound, padded feet, breathing slow and rasping.
You cough, you try to stop yourself but the sound escapes anyway.
Finally you spot the door and begin to walk towards it, carefully.
Don't run.
Don't run. Slowly.
You reach the broken glass and then, a sound.
You shouldn't turn but you do; it's instinct.
You turn and stare into the dark.
And something smiles.
The Elite Diner By DeWayne Todd
My arm pumps food into my mouth in a rhythmic motion. I'm hungry but there is no joy in eating. People only eat to sustain themselves nowadays. It's been so many years since I took pleasure in food or anything else for that matter that I can't even remember what it was like.
When everyone I loved plummeted down into the rotting pits of hell, then came back to life, then I died. They're called the walking dead. They feast on the living with an insatiable hunger, but there appears to be no pleasure for them either. They simply exist to feed. I've watch them gorge themselves until their guts are distended atrocities ready to rupture. Seen them rip a child from limb to limb and suck the marrow from her bones. And for no discernible reason but the mindless drive to consume life.
You watch that a few times and all pleasure in life is stripped away. Your soul turns numb and apathy takes on a new meaning. All that remains is a choice. Are you going to continue to exist or not. The reality is that I'm not sure we are any better than they are. In fact it's probably worse because there still remains some small spark of humanity inside of us. The memory of joy. Love. Passion. But our humanity is continuously cauterized by what we have to do to live. Now the only thing that sparks passion is unloading a magazine of 9 mm rounds into their brains. And even that is tiresome. It seems like we should be making a dent in their numbers, but then you remember there are billions of them.
Trust me. We've all tried to arouse the old desires of the flesh. Booze. Drugs. Sex. And for the record, my desire still works whenever I wank it up, but it's only a physical reaction. Stand up, puke and pass out. We've even taken turns embracing each other. Soft touches. Wild rides. But it's not the same. The scars are far too deep and we've lost the ability to find joy. Everyone has lost everything.
We live at the Elite Diner. Don't know why, but for some reason the vintage stainless steel shell keeps them away. It's like the place doesn't exist to their senses and they simply walk on by in search of other prey.
But there is more to this place than a simple roost.
I look around and memories rise in this diner like dark specters of the past. People ate here. They did more than sustain themselves; they came to this place to enjoy the most basic visceral pleasures. I can imagine those ghosts savoring greasy eggs and peppered bacon. Smiling as they feed their children syrup-drenched pancakes in the mornings. Meatloaf and mashed potato flakes for dinner. I can barely remember the bitter taste of coffee and lingering smell of burning cigarettes, but sometimes I catch the faintest odor.
Nat looks up from her bowl of stew. Three bites and she's done. She walks away with a sigh. We pretend that someone still grows vegetables and slaughters cows for meat. We imagine that all these canned goods are preserved against radiation and rot. But the imagination is not endless.
The Elite Diner remains the last haunted diner in the world. We are the ghosts who linger, seeking to taste what once was. Simple joy and satisfaction of a sated hunger. We gave our souls, but it wasn't enough.
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8:15 AM
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