Interlude
July 30th, 2008General
They have wide, thin mouths, that by some conspiracy of anatomy and lighting appear to extend beyond the borders of their faces, improbable and frog-like. Irritated, emaciated amphibians skulking in plain sight.
“The soup is good, but it’s a little salty.”
Hunched over bowls of chicken noodle, holding court on the finer points of the food service industry. “A lot of diner cooks are smokers. It screws up their sense of taste. They wind up using too much salt.” It’s the wee hours, and they share a table squirreled away in some odd corner of a still odder hometown.
Someone’s hometown, at least. Not mine, certainly not yours. The local diner’s resting place, long since gone ragged.
Later, they don their jackets and walk out back, a scene strewn with empty boxes, grease-streaked and forlorn for lack of their former contents. Moving past the smokers who prepared their meals, all parties puff away silently and eye warily.
“If anything happened to my eyes, man, I’d be screwed.” And yet they’re already malfunctioning in their natural state.
“They’re called glasses. Don’t be so dramatic.”
Make of them what you will.
David Sleight is a web designer living and working in New York City, and the Deputy Creative Director of BusinessWeek.com
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Comments
zeldman August 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 am
I would like to read the rest of this novel.
krystyn August 5th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
as would I.
David Sleight August 6th, 2008 at 1:58 am
But what I really want to do is direct.
krystyn August 6th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I would like to see that movie.
Dan Hallock December 5th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I began wearing glasses yesterday. I have now come to realize that, in fact, quite a bit _had_ happened to my eyes before I began to notice. It’s humbling.
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