"Isn't it a Funny World Nowadays?" by Caitlyn Waltermire
part 1 of 3 installments
1:
Frances might have been nineteen. She might also have been
twenty-eight. Her eyes were black-green like Japanese beetle shells, set
upon two pools of dark circles under her lower eyelids and against the
bridge of her nose. Her hair was a nothing color, like weak tea or lake
water, and the pieces that did not fall across her forehead were swept
into a bun, cloudy and pleasing. She was long-boned and had a habit of
imitating the laugh of whoever she was with. She worked as the only
waitress in the city’s only diner.
The diner was rather yellow,
from the walls to the plates to the toilets. Whether this was from use
or intent of design, no one could remember. The spoons were literally
greasy, due to incompetence of the dish-washers, and customers got into
the habit of wiping their utensils on napkins before using them; (it was
better than complaining at a metal face). A television with a very
large screen hung on the wall everyone was expected to turn to. Usually
it showed speeches or debates or speeches about debates, but today a man
had been arrested for attempting to rape a female-looking machine in
transit to the office where it worked, and this made for interesting
news until expensively-suited people decided to fill all the stations
debating the ethics of it. A man chuckled into his pie and said, “Isn’t
it a funny world nowadays?” but no one heard him.
Frances was
with a different man, the one with peach-colored hair who sat carefully,
with toes pointed at the floor, at the table by the door, a choice that
she suspected meant a noncommittal spirit, but she was Romantic and
always thought small things held greater significance. He kept watching
her, expectantly, with a steadiness that made her ill. He looked at her
mouth, two thin thin slips of pale ribbon that had never moved anyone.
