He was my condemned ultimatum, an expiration date manifested as the ticking time bomb wedged between my lungs. A recent diagnosis, so obsessive, so crippling to the human condition that it overwhelmed my head like a heavy fog shrouding every other aspect of life.
Late Tuesday night I walked into that old diner cemented on the corner of Greenwich and Seventh Avenue, rain coming down in sheets of violent rhythm on the canvas overhang.
I removed the dampened hat from my head and greeted the waitress who seemed all too happy to see me. My eyes glanced from her ruby red lipstick to the few other faces slumped over their home fries and hotdogs. I noticed a drunken couple from the late-night bar across the street, eating toast in an attempt to sponge the liquor that had consumed their shriveled bodies. One man that looked like he had aged too fast in life was sitting near the dusty jukebox, taking turns between a burger and cigarette.
The table my waitress led me to was positioned near a large window that overlooked the wet New York pavement outside. A dreary, but lulling sight to witness. The occasional passerby could be seen huddled under an umbrella with raincoat pulled tightly around their shivering mass, dancing around puddles like a strange, foreign fox-trot. She handed me a menu and departed quickly while straightening her grease-stained skirt.
He arrived shortly after. The door’s bell startled a drunk who had passed out at the bar. I raised my hand up high, signaling my company over to the booth where I sat. Seeing my gesture, he nodded slightly and shuffled over, slumping down into the seat across from me.
Our waitress brought us coffee and gently placed a chipped mug in front of my person, asking if I needed anything else. I shook my head.
My guest finally broke the silence, “Why did you ask me here tonight?”
I stopped pouring, spooned some sugar into the mug, and began to stir in search of the right words to say. He already knew the answer to that question.
“I need to know,” I stammered, “I need to know how much longer I have here.”
My company looked at me for a second before diverting his gaze once again. He knew what I was going through, he had encountered people like myself thousands of times before.
“You know I can’t disclose that. You know I’m just an observer in this world, a bystander in your life.”
“Please,” I whispered as I held my chest now, tightly grasping my soul. It was heavier now, weighing like bricks on the rest of my body.
I turned and looked a bit more closely at the diner’s window and saw myself in its reflection, alien and almost unrecognizable. My face, now chiseled with lines, was older and thinner. My eyes looked back at me, empty and blue, like a vast enigmatic ocean.
I traced my eyes back to the diner’s inhabitants and found myself extremely moved. My heartbeat, so often a crutch of reassurance, now beat in sync to those around me. I saw the man smoking, most likely living off a salary of whatever sympathy people tossed in as quarters and dimes into his fraying hat on the streetside. I saw the drunk man yelling at the cook, someone who might have a broken family to go home to later that night. I saw the couple who had stumbled into this restaurant, individuals who might, in a year, grow to despise each other’s company. I couldn’t relate to all their problems but they faced the same, non-compromisable ultimatum as I did. Death.
As I turned to pour myself another cup of coffee, I glanced at the window once more. A reflection of the booth, only me now. A single passenger in this diner of failed viabilities.
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