The sound of the traffic in the street below was faint and sonorous, each car's gently humming motor pulling Elizabeth towards slumber. She sat on the edge of the small bed and stared at the letter in her hands with suddenly bleary eyes. The sentence she had been reading for the last five minutes continued to elude her. She realized that she had been staring at the word "irrevocable" for so long that it no longer meant anything. It was just a word among many others.
Her cotton night dress seemed cold and flimsy, though her cheeks felt as though they were being gently caressed by flame. She stood up slowly, delighting at the punctual manner with which her left knee distinctly popped. As she curled her toes into the coarse and tightly knit rug she felt the slightest amount of displeasure on realizing that she was undressed. The mirror above the drawers revealed to her several flaws which she had not previously been thoroughly introduced to. Yawning, Elizabeth entered the washroom.
The cool interior of the small cubicle where the sink and bath were located filled her with a sense of wakefulness. Running lukewarm water over her hands she rubbed her face methodically. She let the moisture bead up on her forehead as she compulsively rubbed her surprisingly frigid nose. Drying her face off with an unsatisfyingly cheap bath towel she walked back into the bedroom, still touching her now clammy cheeks. Slightly revived she took up her place on the bed and let her eyes return to the letter which lay mockingly on the thin comforter. She squinted at it until she couldnít even tell that it was a letter anymore. It might have been an oddly out of place design on the bed's brown coverlet. She then grabbed it with her hand and placed it within one of the folds that made up the geography of the blankets. Sickly, she stood again and proceeded to dress.
The hall reeked of cigarettes, yet at the same time it reminded her of her grandparents' house in Connecticut. The walls were covered with wallpaper depicting exotic birds interlocking strangely. Peacocks and nightingales seemed to defy collision, time and again as she passed door after door. But, as Elizabeth walked, she seemed to recall something that she had read in National Geographic magazine when she was young. It was about crows, and how they would occasionally steal other bird's infants to devour them. She then thought that maybe she was mistaken, that perhaps it was storks that would do that.
"Maybe sometimes the stork eats the baby," she whispered to room seven as she passed it.
When Elizabeth entered the street she tried hard not to wheeze uncontrollably in reaction to the heavy diesel fuel in the air. Across the street sat a true to life "greasy spoon." From where she stood, in front of the nickel and dime hotel, she could see into the filthy windows. Inside there was merely a sad collection of solitary old men, who all seemed to be wearing rough and oily work clothes. The singular waitress was a dumpy middle aged woman with greasy black hair and a tightly pinched sour expression etched on her face. As Elizabeth crossed the street she felt a shudder as the diner loomed above her menacingly. Silver chrome now gone to rust seemed to envelop her as she walked in.
A gust of stale cool air met her at the door, followed by the vulgarly intoxicating stench of grease. The waitress looked at Elizabeth with dull amber eyes and asked her to find her own seat. All of the old men's sorrowful eyes turned to her as she plopped herself down on a vinyl covered chair. Like a mourner in a graveyard she sat respectfully silent in the presence of the dead. The menu before her was printed on faded card stock, the edges of which were worn down from years of use. She chose an item that seemed to appeal to her as she passed over it and then waited patiently for the waitress to serve her. As she looked around the dining room she saw pretty much what she expected a diner would be like. A long bodied creature with a silver and scarlet interior, with a long bar to sit at and a kitchen visible in the back. Elizabeth picked up a complimentary packet of saltines and crushed the contents in her petite fist. At the edge of hearing an ancient record player was murmuring Cole Porter's Buddy Beware, Ethyl Mermanís brassiness muted by the grotesque atmosphere inside the room.
The waitress plodded up to Elizabethís table and asked for her order. "What'ya want?" The waitressís gnarled hand was wrapped around a ball point pen as she awaited instructions.
"I'll have the turkey sandwich and a coca cola." Elizabethís voice was business like and official.
"Mayo with that?" The waitress scrawled a mysterious series of letters over her pad.
"No, thank you." Elizabeth made to turn away but was stopped as the waitress cleared her throat as politely as possible.
"Chips or pickle?" she intoned sharply.
"Neither, thank you."
The waitress moved away from the table and disappeared into the back room. Elizabeth looked up and saw one of her new admirers staring at her with cataract clouded eyes as he spooned a soggy looking cherry pie into his maw. His teeth were practically mauve with decay, and she found herself hard pressed not to gag as she watched the pie turn to mush in his mouth. Instead she produced a charming smile and then pressed herself closer to the window.
Outside, in the street, car upon car cruised by the greasy spoon and the hotel like gentle beasts. Occasionally a lone man or woman would pass by her, and she would try and watch them for as long as she could before they disappeared around a corner, or even straight into the night. They walked with determination as they all strived to reach "point b," that famed destination where all people end up. Elizabeth suddenly felt uncomfortable in her seat and tried to shift herself into a better position.
The waitress brought her meal on a wooden tray. It reminded Elizabeth of when she was sick and her mother would serve her breakfast in bed. She set it down and smiled weakly. "Enjoy," she added as she walked over to an adjacent table and lit up a cigarette.
Elizabeth looked down at her meal. It was not a turkey sandwich. It was, in fact, a ham sandwich with Swiss cheese on rye bread. She stared at the alien item of food on her plate, looking intently at the rivulets of pure fat that ran like streams through the slice of ham. The scent of the cigarette pricked up her nose and she felt her eyes water. Her cheeks seemed to be growing hotter and hotter as she stared at the ham sandwich. It wasn't what she'd asked for. She didn't want it. As tears began to make their way gently down her cheek, she covered up her burning face with her hands and made a small weak noise in the back of her throat.
To her it sounded like a child in pain.
