Quiet Light and a Stable Place for a Cup continued


    The girl stood up, dug a black leather coin purse from her messenger bag and left a penny tip.
    The barista watched her go down the street, a teen with no place to go but into herself.
    "Why didn't you let her stay for another cup?" They put the chairs on top of the tables. "It's not half-past one."
    "I want to go home and finish my paper."
    "What's an hour?"
    "More to me than to her."
    "An hour is nothing."
    "You talk like a teenager yourself. She can buy a bag of ground beans and drink at home."
    "It wouldn't be the same."
    "No, it wouldn't," agreed the cashier, "but I'm still in a hurry."
    "And you're not afraid of leaving early?"
    "Quit riding my ass."
    "It's just a joke."
    "No, I have no fear," the hurried cashier said, as she dragged the mop across the wood floor. "I am full of confidence."
    "Plenty of confidence, a job, and an education," the barista said. "You have everything."
    "And what don't you have?"
    "Everything but work."
    "Bullshit. You have everything I have."
    "No. I never had confidence and l barely finished high school."
    "You're full of shit. Come on and lock up."
    "I like to stay late," the older barista said, "with all the people who don't have papers and pens waiting on their kitchen tables. With all those who need a drop more white cream in their coffee."
    "Can I go home and finish my work?"
    "You're eager to leave work to do more work," the barista said. She pulled her jacket on. "It is not only a question of confidence or an education, as beautiful as these things are. I am here each night because maybe someone needs one more drink."
    "Honey, there are diners open all night long."
    "You don't get it. I keep this place clean. The tables don't wobble. The lights don't buzz, they hum softly. The brass on the boiler shines in the light."
    "Good night," said the cashier.
    "Good night," the other said. Turning off the fluorescents and locking the door, she continued the conversation with herself. The light's important, but the place has to be clean too. You don't want jukebox country. Definitely no weeping country music. You can't sit at a bar in front of an open grill without slipping out of yourself, although that's all you'll find at this hour.
    What did she fear? Or was it dread? It was nothing. She was familiar with nothing and she was nothing too. It was only nothing and all it needed was quiet light and a stable place for a cup. Some lived in the middle of it and never knew it, but she knew it was all nothing and more nothing. As she walked, she felt the chalk bones under her skin, grinding each other to grist as the days piled upon each other. One day there would be no bone left and she'd hunch over an aluminum frame to hold herself up. In the beginning was the nothing, and the nothing was with nothing, and the nothing was nothing. All things were made through nothing. And the nothing shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.
    She smiled and sat down at a bar with a clear view of the dull steel grill.
    "What can I getcha?" asked the waitress.
    "Nothing."
    "Then you can go somewhere else," she smiled and turned away.
    "A cup of coffee," said the barista.
    The waitress poured it for her.
    "Your light is very bright but your grill is greasy."
    The waitress looked at her but didn't answer. It was too late for a conversation.
    "You want something to eat?" the waitress asked.
    "No, thank you," said the barista and she went out. She didn't like diners and hated bars. A clean, café with quiet light was something. Now, she would stop thinking and go home to her apartment. She would lie on her sofa and see inside the girl, her brass skeleton shining, polished with blood. Finally, with daylight, she would go to sleep.

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Bio: Brian Collier scrapes a living from the red-clay of the southern United States where he enjoys Kentucky Bourbon and carries on an intimate relationship with Melville Dewey's decimal classification system. According to his great-grandmother, Brian has been telling stories since he could talk. Of course to her telling stories was a euphemism for lying, but isn't that what fiction is, a really good lie?