Love never seemed for him. Michael knew that love was for everyone and all that, but he had his own things. Things that were for Michael and Michael alone. Like the watch on his left wrist, cinched just a notch too tight, so he could feel the hour hand tick. The seat cover. The hat he wore every day for the last 30 years. Hell, the whole rig was Michael’s. Well, the load was from the lumber mill upstate, but that wasn’t important, at least not to him. Michael treasured all his possessions. Not because they were special, because they were his.

The truck was slowing down, the trees along the mountain pass started to slow down, too. There were no other cars on the ridge. There was nowhere to pull off. Not for a truck like Michael’s. The dashed line slithering along the edge of the mountain road glowed a soft white in the gleam of his headlights. He started mumbling to himself as the dashboard clock switched to AM. This wasn’t a route he normally drove and the sky out north leaked a pink mist of light pollution. There had been no reason for the drive. He had plenty of savings, time off, and sick days. But Michael could never sit still. When he was on vacation, he’d walk for hours down the beach until it ended, until the sharp rocks and NO TRESPASSING signs finally turned him away.

No. He was better on the road. Better to keep moving, better to be on the clock.

A black dog jumped out onto the road. Michael swerved to avoid it. He didn’t even flinch. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

But then it felt like the wheels weren’t touching the ground. Michael felt himself floating. The truck was suspended above the ravine. Then he began to plunge. The trees tried to catch Michael, but they kept dropping him. They dropped him over and over and over until he was at the bottom of the mountain. The pink mist leaked down. His eyes had missed a crucial beat, stayed down a fraction too long. The wheels had slipped out from under him.

Michael kept driving. In a daze he saw a sign that said “open forever” and “diner.” He pulled the truck through the empty parking lot and under the gas station awning. Where the rain couldn’t get to it.

The place looked clean enough, and although he couldn't see anyone inside, he could tell by the light that something hot was being served.

Behind the counter was a skinny man with the face of a Civil War general. He had mutton chops, and a mustache that must have been a health code violation. He was focused on nine or so yellow sunny eggs sizzling away on the griddle. Behind him at the back of the diner sat a crew of four or so young men. “Young men” was a polite way of saying rowdy teenage boys.

At the cash register an older woman admired her nails, which must have been new as they were rather pink. Her pink nails matched the pink in her camo baseball cap. She looked up at Michael as he walked in, her crows feet crawled back under the mascara, and a smile found itself easily on her face, finding all the right lines from years of welcoming guests to a midnight breakfast.

Michael made his way to the counter, taking his own hat off and smiling back at the woman. “People don’t really take their hats off as much anymore”, he thought to himself as he sat down at the counter. He had always hated the diner stools. He much preferred a sturdy back to lean against, but sitting in one of the empty booths seemed a little too lonely for the lonely man.

“What can I get you to drink honey?” Asked the waitress.

“Oh, Just a coffee.” Michael responded

“You’re in luck, we just brewed a fresh pot.” Said the waitress.

She smiled and walked back into the kitchen.

Coffee had long since stopped working on Michael. The boys at the back of the diner were laughing now, well three of them were, one was looking towards the waitress and shushing

his friends. Micahel pretended to read the menu even though he knew what he was going to get: Covered Smothered Hash Browns with jalapenos on the side.

The jalapenos always came in a little white bowl that he had never seen anywhere else besides 24/7 diners. He liked to think they kept those bowls in stock especially for him and his jalapenos.

Through the corner of his eye he could see four boys, tall and skinny. The tallest boy, blond and boastful, was squirting ketchup into an empty water cup. The boy mixed in salt and residue from the waffle plates. The whole display was disgusting. The sight of condiments in that quantity was horrible. And to add to the disgrace they were adding random trash… Bleck. Michael couldn’t help but shake his head. The waitress came out of the back room and made side eyes at him. He smiled back nervously.

Michael had half a mind to leave and began eyeing his truck through the window. It seemed very far away, all polished white and glowing out there in the parking lot. He made up his mind, put both boots back on the lynoleum. He turned his head to the waitress.

“You know, ma’am, I’m really sorry to bail on ya, but I think I lost my appetite.” “Oh, darling you can’t leave now. I’m afraid your hashbrowns are already on the griddle” At that exact moment a sizzling started as the cook dropped a frozen heap of diced

potatoes into a puddle of canola oil. Michael didn’t even remember ordering. “And you can’t just leave here without paying,” Said the once kind waitress. The sentence hung in the air, becoming more and more foreboding the longer Michael waited. He sat there frozen. He had never been able to stand up for himself, and he wasn’t about to start now. He settled back into his chair a little uneasy from this sudden cold front. He looked pleadingly at the waitress, begging for an out.

“Don’t worry, hun, they’ll be gone soon.” She smiled again. The warmness in her face lifted his spirits and he forgot that he wasn’t really that hungry. He forgot a lot of things when people smiled at him.

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve never payed for a meal I ain't ate”

“Wouldn’t make any sense now would it?” Said the waitress. She looked back to the boys laughing in the corner. “They‘ll be gone soon, don't worry hun.”

“The sooner they’ll be wrapped around a tree,” said the cook.

Michael was taken aback. The cook who, up until now, had seemingly been staring holes into sizzling hash browns. The nine eggs had finished cooking and were waiting on the counter. Three to a plate. Micahel looked around, not sure who the eggs could be for.

He tasted his coffee, it was sweet, and dark and much better than any coffee he had ever drank at a midnight diner.

“Did you put sugar in this?”

‘No, hun, that’s just how we make it here.” Michael took another sip. “I could drink this all night,” he thought to himself

The door opened and a man who looked like a crypt keeper walked in, he had wispy black hair on the very outskirts of his head and was wearing a damp 7/11 uniform. He nodded and sat down wordlessly at the counter a few stools down.

“The usual?” asked the waitress.

The crypt keeper nodded.

The nine eggs were placed in front of the newcomer. All the yolks moved in sync, wiggling like googly eyes. Pepper was sprinkled over them and then salt and finally a dash of hot sauce. Michael turned away as the man proceeded to slurp up his nine eggs.

His eyes didn’t know where to look, his stomach squirmed slightly as he imagined the man eating all nine eggs. That can’t be good for you, that’s nearly a dozen, Hell, why not just make it a dozen at that point, what’s three more eggs? He studied the menu intently until the waitress came with his coffee, then he studied his mug.

Sleeping in the truck wouldn’t be so bad for the night, although Michael really wished he could find a motel, take a warm shower, maybe watch some TV. But he knew better than to press on. The roads were getting slicker and slicker, and the mist that had invaded the hillside had begun to stick to the road. The diner almost seemed to be nestled into its very own faded pink cloud, Michael could barely see the road, much less the mountains.

The boys in the back of the diner had begun to shuffle out of their seats. Michael rotated his head ever so slightly to his right avoiding any and all eye contact. The ketchup had exceeded the limit of the blue dimpled diner cup and had begun to spill over the side.

The waitress caught his look of disgust and smiled at him as one would smile at a puppy losing its footing.

“It’s okay, that's why we get paid the big bucks.”

“I guess so,” Michael said half heartedly before taking a sip from his coffee,

The boys streamed past him barely missing his hunched back, he counted their forms one, two, three. The three waited outside. The rain seemed to ignore them completely. Thin smoke billowed up from the trio’s Marlboro Reds.

“They never tip,” sighed the waitress as she headed over to the massacre of ketchup packets and coffee creamer.

“That ain’t right” grumbled Michael, his mouth in his mug.

The Civil War general manning the griddle nodded, his teeth were clenched so tight Micahel thought they would shatter and fly into his Covered and Smothered. The bathroom slammed open. The metal handle cracking against the plaster wall. Michael caught sight of the last boy. Blue eyes, blonde hair spilling from his head in the uncaring nature of a man that has never been disappointed. Alexander the Great would have named him his successor if he hadn’t run out of worlds to conquer. The youth spotted his mates outside the glass.

He squeezed past Michael, slowed down ever so slightly, and snatched the black trucker cap that was resting besides him.

It had been his sole companion for all those billions of miles of freeway. The sweat stain created a sort of tan halo on the inner rim of the hat.

But more important than those hours on the road, and all the sweat held in the brim. The real stinger was the simple fact that the cap was Michael’s.. And the thought of his hat being tossed around like a trophy, worn mockingly and in bad faith by the crew of trouble makers rubbed him all the wrong ways.

The door’s little bell clanged and rested again and echoed around Michael’s bare head, as the shock of such a cruel and sudden act began to take its toll on his lower back and make its way up to his throat and into his mouth. Where he formed and released the cry of the dishonored American male.

“Darn it!”

The boys outside the diner’s fishbowl windows split into the black new pickup truck that had been waiting patiently for a getaway. They piled into the truck as Michael rang the door’s

bell and stepped out into the mist just in time to see the truck pulling away. He watched them drive away, resigned and in total silence.

The truck split down the parking lot and onto the empty highway, rolling coal out of the exhaust. The black smog merged with the mist. The smell of sulfur wafted about. The sudden acceleration spun the wheels a little extra and the truck hydroplaned. Separating the youths from the earth temporarily, and then forever. As the black truck smashed into the guard rail. It split over the iron and careened into the void. Out of sight of the freeway lights, and out of sight of Michael. The crash was muffled by trees, and little thorns and the brimstone at the very bottom. The silent engulfment left a hole in the guard rail. Which was now twisted and mangled.

Michael walked back into the diner and sank into his stool. The waitress was still busy cleaning up the mess at the back table. The cryptkeeper was on his final trio of eggs. The Confederate stared straight out into space, jaw still clenched.

“They'll be back.” Said the Confederate.

Michael did not interpret the words, still in a state of shock. He even forgot about his hat, now lost forever.

Outside over the split in the guardrails five glowing orbs appeared from the wreckage, floating upward through the mist. Gabriel, Jove, Tamiel, and Uriron were their names. Peculiar names for good Southern boys; but stranger things have come and gone. Their names would have been shared if anyone had been there to ask or receive such knowledge. But no one was there and their names blew away down the freeway, caught in the tailwind of a passing car and they were released back to the sky.

“The police must be called,” Michael began to think aloud.

But no one else in the diner seemed to give him much mind, too busy focusing on working or consuming the last egg of the night. To be honest, he didn’t really want to call the police either, what could they do besides block traffic and slow him down, and then the mess would be real. With real time stamps and real casualties and his hat. His hat would then be used as evidence. Proof that those boys did exactly the way it looked like.

And even if the policeman gave him back the hat after sucking out every hair follicle and fingerprint, the hat would no longer be his as it would have been held in the severed hands of a blonde-haired youth laughing right up until his face met the oak tree growing halfway down the mountain.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to clear out, take his now-bare head and sixteen wheels and make it down to the coast, where a queen bed and a mini fridge and little peanuts could be claimed and an endless beach could be traversed and used up. The waitress passed behind him and patted him on the shoulder with a light, wrinkled warmth that only a diner waitress on the night shift could bestow.

“The first time is always the hardest.”

Michael sunk into his seat and sipped his coffee nervously. He looked around to where the late teens had been sitting. In their wake was a smattering of wet straws, paper napkins, and mustard stains smeared on the table. He tried to speak. Something, anything, but it all croaked out, and he changed it into a gruff cough. He headed to the bathroom. It felt like his feet were very far away from him.

He washed his face in the mirror, sniffed under his armpits, and tried to forget about the truck that had disappeared off the cliff. He looked at his face in the mirror. It didn’t look well. It never really looked great, but right now it looked especially bad to him. His eyes were hollowed out and he looked paler and less pink than he usually did and his hat— His hat was missing. Michael sighed and went back out into the diner. His stomach churned.

The waitress had almost finished cleaning the mustard-stained table. She grimaced as she moved the cleaning rag in a little circle, leaving little trails of reflected light. “They left this if you want it.” The waitress straightened her back and stuck a well manicured hand into her apron.

Michael heard keys jangle and a phone buzzed within the red apron. He looked at the wet table where mustard and disrespect had been splattered all about just ten minutes before. He thought of the truck at the bottom of the cliff, a much messier mess. He shuddered, his stomach churned another churn. When he remembered that the waitress was talking to him he was met with the sight of a little lime green plastic container the shape of a well-used bar of soap. The package said ZYN.

“Those guys love these things, they leave them here every time they come” Her eyes seemed to be testing him, probing him for some sort of sign.

A sign of what, he wasn’t exactly sure. Michael was not a man that knew what women's eyes meant. He put out his hand and let the container fall into it. ZYN: tobacco-free nicotine packets. Tobacco free nicotine packets. He rolled that sentence around his frozen brain. Tobacco free nicotine packets.

“They’re tobacco-free nicotine packets,” said the waitress.

The thing looked like gum. Michael looked up at his waitress who was still staring at him with a look he did not understand. Michael did not understand so many things. “Thank you,” said Michael. He walked past the waitress who was still watching and returned to his seat. He smelt burnt toast. Michael didn’t usually smell burnt toast. The other customer, the crypt keeper, was eating a piece of charred toast. Those watery eggs must have given him some sort of brain damage, or stomach damage, because no one in their right mind would have eaten toast in that condition.

“You know we won the war.”

Michael looked at the crypt keeper, who had just broken his vow of silence. “Hmm?” “Based on bodies we won. Two to one.”

“Uhh, the Civil War?” Michael had no real opinions on the Civil War.

“Damn straight, but those butchers marched down to Atlanta and murdered every other woman and child”

“I’m not really one for history.”

“It’s not history; it's still here.”The crypt keeper stared off into the deep into the dark windows behind Michael.

Michael played with the tin of ZYN’s in his hand and popped it open. The sound reminded him of a woman he once knew who had a thing for Altoids. She always kept one of them in the center console. Only ever one though. As soon as it was empty it was gone, and a new fully loaded Altoid tin would replace it. She was neat like that.

Michael bit his bottom lip and slipped one of the tobacco free nicotine packets into his top lip; it stung, like some sort of concentrated mouthwash. He felt the outside of his lip trying to feel if there was a hole starting to melt through. Micahel was meant to have some deep sadness in him, he knew that. A sadness that was his and his alone, and if that sadness was ever

approached or uncovered he was quick to shoo that person away. Push the sadness up the ramp and into the back of the mac truck and head down the freeway. It was his sadness. Loneliness was a much safer way of keeping this beautiful, delicate sadness safe. It was this sadness that powered the walks on the endless beaches. It was this sadness that kept him company when he got back to the motel room and climbed into bed with himself. It was this sadness that stalled his smile when the maid who he had seen every month for over thirteen years came to greet him, and made him unresponsive to the abundant warmth in her eyes. This sadness was more important than any cup of morning coffee.

This sadness was more important than companionship. More important than happiness. A witness to this sadness would say that it was made of ice, and that it would melt if he ever let anyone come close enough to touch it.

But it wasn’t made of ice.

His sadness wasn't made of anything.

That’s what made it so fragile.

The discovery of this hidden void would destroy everything. Every lonesome night would be meaningless, every footprint swallowed by the rising tide would have been a waste. Each declined cigarette, was merely a cigarette declined and shoved begrudgingly back into the pack.

The door behind Michael jingled. Michael, too lost in thought, failed to turn around as four young men giggling like little girls on time out, slinked inside from the rain and moved toward the back of the diner.

“Sir.”

Michael glanced to his left. The boy's curly blonde hair was matted from the mist and his glowing yellow skin had an apple-like sheen. The boy stood alone as his friends walked and took their very special seats in the corner and started fighting over the menus.

“Here.”

The boy held out an old beat up trucker hat.

Michael's eyes didn’t light up. But something behind them clicked and silently he reached out and felt the faded brim, sweat stains and all. It was his hat. The boy seemed unfazed by his tragic death. He smiled politely and looked down at his spotless work boots. “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again”

Michael stared at the hat and let his hand fall.“Thanks, Just leave it on the counter.” The boy obliged and went off to join his smirking friends who had just gotten their sodas. The blonde boy even had a soda waiting for him. What thoughtful friends he had. Michael picked up the hat and fitted it squarely onto his head. The ZYN had begun to kick in and his eyes ticked open another notch, and he suddenly felt the need to leave this place, he brought out his wallet.

“Hun, you haven’t even eaten yet.” The waitress set down Micahel’s meal, prepared just how he liked it. The Covered and Smothered was steaming and the cheese was layered into it just right, and the toast was far from burnt.

“Oh just a second.” The waitress hurried behind the counter and scooped some jalapenos into the little ceramic bowl and set it down next to his plate with a little smile. The little ceramic bowl had been waiting for him all night. It had some small blue lettering on it. Written in the handwriting of an old lady who enjoys sitting next to the fireplace.

The blue ink spelled out

“For Michael”.

The rain continued outside and the boys in the back slurped their sodas ever so rudely. Michael took the ZYN out of his mouth. Rinsed his mouth with water, and picked a jalapeno slice from the bowl before he popped it into his mouth.

It tasted good.

Jack Ludkey is an American writer.