@skyhaunts

          yennifer’d found ways to entertain herself between jobs by doing silly and frivolous things; things like counting billboards or cheating at cards. one of her favorite games that she played required a little diner, a table for one, and a mind deprived, as she regularly was, of living human-to-living human interaction for far too long. this particular game depended on spying the similarities between the many eateries of this  great  nation. yennifer had compiled a few common denominators during her travels & she’d made a game of spotting each one every time she visited someplace new. 

          she knew, for example, that every small town diner had a counter: lined by swivel chairs & glass confection stands displaying old-fashioned pies or cakes or donuts or what have you. she noticed, passingly, that the displays here were nearly empty & she had yet to decide if that boded well or not. another point of congruity that she’d noticed: every diner she’d been to seemed to have the same yellowing, laminated, syrup-sticky, menus—the size & scope of which verged on the obscene: a veritable cornucopia of the delights & delicacies of the americas, both north & south. on top of the endless anthology of cuisine one was presented with at the door she’d come to accept the fact that there was never, would never, be enough time between being seated & being asked what you wanted. it didn’t matter if the place was packed to capacity or dead as church on a tuesday: someone with a lacquer-like smile pinned to their face & a uniform so finely pressed you’d think it was made of paper was sure to follow no less than ten minutes into one’s stay to exchange pleasantries.

          it was seldom ever so that the server’s outward enthusiasm matched her own. it catches her enough off-guard that she flounders for a moment. she glances at his uniform, eyes scanning his apron, his chest, his arms, for a name tag, before finally settling on his face,  ❛  be honest: how’s the cherry pie here ?  ❜

        “best cherry pie in town,” he recites the line without a moment’s hesitation. he’s heard it so many times, always delivered with that bright smile and peppy lilt, he wouldn’t be surprised if the owners decided to make the thing their slogan. maybe get one of those big ol’ marquee signs and let the letters scream it to anybody within a hundred feet radius. best cherry pie in town! :)

it’s the only cherry pie in town.

this is the only diner in town. which means they can get away with a hell of a lot so long as there’s somebody who isn’t keen on having dinner with their family that night or some poor soul who thinks coffee at 3 am is gonna do them any good. loretta’s diner has the luxury of being able to serve bland meals and still stay afloat, and it takes full advantage of that luxury. the food here is a mixed bag. the burgers are bland, the chicken tenders are rubbery, and the onion rings are soggy—but not always. the owners seem to be afraid of seasoning, some of the older cooks too, but sometimes timothy (or one of his decent coworkers) gets ahold of somebody’s order and a fortunate soul gets paprika on their patty. quality depends on the day, time, and luck. there’s a lot of variables at play. but with some things, like the cherry pie, there isn’t.

the cherry pie is always good. as are the rest of the pies, and the milkshakes, and the bread pudding. the senior cooks can’t flip a seasoned burger to save their lives, but they have desserts handled. every slice is guaranteed to be good, flaky, and sweet — maybe they should make it their slogan. but that conviction doesn’t mean he’s about to go around lilting that lilt and smiling that smile like everybody on the wait staff does. so his face remains impassive for the most part, with only the slightest twitch of his lips, as if he’s just shared an inside joke with himself, before settling back to indifference.

        a wry laugh falls from crimson stained lips, accompanied by an eye roll. one that’s reserved for him only. “at least i’ll go out with great taste unlike you.” the diner is quiet, quieter than it had been the first few months she started working but no complaints here. taking a long drag, the hint of sweetness collects within her mouth before leaning against the wall of the shit hole. spencer barely digs for the lighter in her back pocket then brings up to his own stick, exhaling the minty taste of menthol. she wouldn’t trust him with it. too many lighter thieves.

             “don’t say i never did anythin’ for you.”

his only response to her comment is a look that spells exactly how much he cares about what rank his cigarettes fall under. (a smoke is a smoke, spence.) he snorts and leans into the flame. the fact that she’s careful to keep the lighter in her own hands doesn’t go unnoticed. she’s smart. he wouldn’t have taken it. maybe he would have conveniently forgotten to give it back, but he wouldn’t have taken it—the man likes to think he has some morals. once the cigarette end glows orange, he leans back, speaking through the half of his mouth that isn’t occupied by the habit.

        “those things’ll kill you, y’know.” he nods to her cigarette, wry grin curling around the matching stick tucked in the corner of his mouth. behind them rests the faded bubblegum pink walls of what may be the most lax workplace in town. (surely, if the diner had any semblance of order, they wouldn’t be letting their employees take smoke breaks whenever they felt like it?) he falls silent for a moment — fishes through his pockets for a lighter, searching his apron, his pants, before coming up with nothing. an eyebrow raises as he looks to her.

        ❛  definitely,  ❜  charlotte’s seen girls go missing for more nefarious reasons, but it seems easy enough to do it voluntarily. she’s just never had the courage, but she wants to  -  wants to get out of this city and the demons that dwell within.  ❛  where  would  you  go,  if  you  could?  ❜  she takes the cigarette from him, it looks wrong with her babyfaced looks as the carcinogen carrier’s put between her lips. dark brown eyes watch him curiously.      ❛  do  you  have  people  that’d  miss  you?  ❜

     “anywhere where the people are nice.” he can’t pinpoint a spot on the map. he’s been too caught up in wanting to get out of here that he’s never thought about where he’d go. “near a decent city, so i wouldn’t be bored. but far enough that i could be alone.” safe.

he worries his lip at the second question.

     “maybe.” teeth release his bottom lip with a shrug. “i dunno if they’d miss me, or the things i do for them.” timothy doesn’t exactly have a winning personality people would notice missing from their lives. sure, they’d notice when the work he puts in suddenly isn’t getting done, but anyone noticing his disappearance? doubtful. even his parents — a year earlier, he’d easily throw their hat in the ring of people that would miss him, but these days he isn’t too sure. gaze flickers over to her, mismatched girl with her bubblegum hair and the cheap cigarette.

        ❛  ever  wanted  to  disappear  before?  i  feel  like  it’s  easy.  ❜  //  @skyburden: sc.

          IT’S ALL WELL AND GOOD  to be filming in the backwoods of fucking nowhere   —   saves money on location scouting, individually having to pay to film on different streets.  She’s filmed in big cities before, she knows the sort of hassle that comes with that, but Hangman 4 had a different director with a much smaller budget, and sacrifices had to be made.  Still, it meant that once the shooting day was complete, Jo didn’t have anything to do.     ❝   There anything fun to do around here ?  Besides staring into the eyes of the livestock, that is.   ❞          |          @skyburden​

     “sorry t’bother you—” there’s that dull ache in his head. that steady reminder—you haven’t slept, you haven’t slept, you haven’t slept—drumming with every breath. it’s been what— four days—? (five?) since he last closed his eyes? and he feels every second of it under the fluorescent lights.

he’s been standing here for a little too long, staring at the liters of sodas on the shelves without really looking at them. there's something he wanted, some reason he entered the department store in the first place, but he can’t remember what. he knows it’s not soda or juice or any of the other beverages lining the aisle. he keeps checking his phone, hoping for a clue, but it’s been dead long before he even entered the store. (probably died on day three of no sleep, otherwise known as day one of refusing to go home.) maybe he came looking for a charger?

probably. sounds likely. he’ll figure out how to get away from the sodas and towards the chargers as soon as he figures out something more important:

it’s one of those slow days. the ones where people seem to realize everything on the menu could easily be made at home. the diner’s mostly empty. the workers have whittled down to five. and of the employees that are actually present, none of them are waiters. usually the protocol for this is simple: call people in. but today the boss has this bright idea—a way to make sure somebody is waiting on tables and dampen the idling in the kitchen, all at once.

which is how instead of doing the job he’s supposed to be getting paid for, timothy ends up in the front, with a notepad and pen. he’d point out he doesn’t have a trace of hospitality in his bones, and there’s the telltale ache of an oncoming migraine pulsing at the side of his head, but it’s a family business. and barring timothy, all of the workers here are family—and none of them ever complain. he’s not about to be the exception.

there’s no frills as he walks up to the booth. no million dollar smile, no how are you?, just straight to the point with the best non-frown his second-rate hospitality can muster:

     “do you sell—” he sucks in a breath. maybe he inhaled a little too quickly, maybe he’s just been doing a decent job of ignoring it until now, but the pain blossoming beneath the skin of his abdomen has him clenching his teeth. a sharp, sudden stab lingers before teetering back to a bearable ache.

the consequence of living on a cattle ranch. only twenty minutes earlier, he was heading out to the pasture, wondering what all the noise was about, why the cattle seemed nervous. he didn’t see anything. he didn’t hear anyone. but it seems the cattle did, because they couldn’t be calmed. the dark bruise blooming underneath his shirt can vouch for that.

still, if anything, he welcomes the distraction. no matter how painful it may be. better to focus on an injury than have time to dwell on the implications of it all — why the cattle were scared, why he couldn’t find anything (why he can never find anything). and when it comes down to it, timothy much rather be here, at the store, than back home, with whatever’s out there.

he takes another breath, careful this time, before trying again:

     “found another stray.” lighter. the disposable kind — cheap and simple and easily forgotten, if the number he’s found since taking this job is any indication. this one, like most ones, was found wedged in the corner of a booth. he figures it must’ve fallen out of someone’s pocket. a shame, considering it still works.

        flame flickers to life as he lights his cigarette. it’s a small reprieve from the lunch rush waiting for him inside. he takes a drag, mindful to exhale away from her before offering the lighter. usually, he keeps them for himself. takes them home and adds them to his growing collection. you never know when you’ll run out. but that collection’s well over a dozen now. pocketing this one just seems excessive.