Sometimes I walk around and I don’t even know who I am.
Today I am the foreigner. The out of town stranger in a small town café. The regular patrons, who are chatting
amicably with one another, fall silent and look up as I enter the room. Curious eyes meet mine for an instant,
unintentionally, then drop. Staring isn't polite. At first I simply stand there,
viewing the tiny one room café. There
are two tables and four booths crammed together at odd angles, as well as a
single row of stools along the counter.
I glance around; there is no waitress in sight, and while one table is
full, most of the others have not been cleared off yet.
An elderly woman peeks out from the
kitchen, but says nothing. I smile at
her, as though reassuring her that this strange out-of-towner ‘comes in peace’. A few minutes go by, and I see the menu
consists of an old board on the wall.
Selection is limited. No need for
big decision making in a town of this size.
Big Stone City. The name could be
misleading, depending upon where one places the emphasis. I’m sure there’s a big stone around here
somewhere, but the city itself certainly doesn’t merit the descriptor.
I order; a couple of eggs and some
hash browns, glancing at the register, and thinking it is a good thing I am
carrying some cash. It doesn't look as
though they have a credit card machine.
The prospect of washing dishes in exchange for my meal is an interesting
one, and I entertain the thought for a moment, allowing it to settle in my mind
before floating off into oblivion. I
could stay here, fading into oblivion like that very same thought, washing
dishes at this tiny diner with the warped checker floor.
My food comes then, interrupting the
thought, and it dissipates along with the imaginary Minnesota girl who
abandoned her life elsewhere to get lost in a small South Dakotan town. A cliché and culturally necessary cup of
coffee is set in front of me, and I thank the dark-haired waitress who places
it there, a movement she is likely to have made thousands of times. She sets the food down with the same familiarity
of movement, but I keep writing- scrawling my thoughts on the pamphlet I stole
from the counter.
Again, my mind wanders, and I find
myself having delusions of grandeur, imagining other writers who no doubt sat
in similar diners scrawling notes on napkins and pamphlets. In my mind, I am as noble, and as humble, as
these very same great minds who went on to affect the lives of millions with
the touch of a pen. I continue to
compare myself to them, knowing that I am
them, in one way or another. And
they are me.
But the time has come to move
on. I swallow the last dregs of coffee
from a chipped mug, gone long cold from my inattentiveness, and stand up,
giving the small café one last look as I pay for my breakfast with a single crisp
bill.
Then I walk out the door, most likely never to
grace the little diner with my presence again, but feeling as
though it will linger within me in the days to come, a reminder of a story that
might have been.
