Wondering bird

And to restrict the spirit is to recall an end. Lorena was sure those were the words she remembered from her last dream. She has no idea who said it, not even why. They existed on the border between the nightmares and insomnia. Only she could look at her ceiling in complete silence as the time was passing leaving her no choice but to get up.

Opening the window, the cold breeze purified the room, leaving fresh air inside. This part of New England was covered in show in this part of the year, so she wondered why was then late. The person not used to the surroundings changing could feel enormously tired and scared with small things occurring weird. Lorena was like that, stagnant rock near the road following in to the forest and mountain trail.

No essence needed, nor another large description for an explanation for the certain stillness of space, time and moments in her home before she went to work. The draft, meandering around her small apartment on the ground floor, her bathroom view of the forest while the sun was setting. Rustling of the stuff she held in her make up bag, opening and closing of the setting powder, miserably failed at imitating weak whisper of the birds who stayed to survive those freezing December nights sheltered under the roofs of the building or trees. She usually fed them with leftover bread from the dinner, she brought for breakfast after finishing her shift. Jason would always specially wrap it, just for her. The cook whose working hours, she could not determine. Because he was there before she clock into the shift and there when she returned home. The dark was approaching and Lorena could not, little by little, see her face in the mirror without turning the lights on.

Her daily walk through the woods, the shortcut which seemed much longer than it actually was, felt calming when the forest was not silent. Then she would go, by the road closer to the driveway when it got too dim and dark to pass through the trail. So in the summer, in her work there was a catch. Lorena almost never were going, nor returning when the sun was down, or before it was up. Yet the winter was more cruel, more exhausting. The breeze going in her face, giving its domain and will to conquer her body with freezing sensation.

The forest, no different, in its rules that didn’t invalidated themselves for the sake of ever changing seasons. Lorena knew and respect them. Affinity and preference for the eternity of the woods caused her to, in fact, fear people roaming out there alone. The circumstances she could find herself into, like that day. When a man approached her in uncanny, yet terrifying presence. Like a prophet, he talked but didn’t said much. The same shivering feeling brushing against her skin, her body recognized as repeated action and conditioned moment for evasion.

Adapted to such interactions, she found this particular one extreme. Like the man she encountered, carried the burden of the unknown. Crooked eyes, walk as he was run over by car three separate times. Staggering in such strange way.

“Morpheus wants a Greek salad. Make sure you serve him that if you want him to be pleased” he said. After the comment, a stranger went his way, in the opposite direction of hers and Lorena considered the statement insignificant because next to it she felt like an invisible witness to whom should not have been funneled.

The light outside, big letter DINNER on the diner didn’t worked ever since the last Wednesday, when she told Jason about it. Flashing in subliminal outlook, on the half darkened parking. “Maybe sometimes you can change the light outside Jason,” she said walking on the second door, “your domain ain’t only the kitchen”.

She left her coat on the hanger, passing Madeline who was reading her own novel, over and over again. “Did you find anything wrong with it?” Lorena asked her. “I don’t know anymore.” Placing her papers in the drawer, along with her uniform. Every Friday night, she would always ask and the answer would be delivered the same.

The shift was going steady, until the bearded truck driver entered Lorena’s place of cinematography. He wasn’t nervous, so she could claim he was not new at his job, nor annoyed like the usual customers she served.

“A Greek salad”.

To her surprise she asked, all nosy, kind of terrified remembering the strangers prophecy. Everything paused for a second, even the music. “Are you Morpheus, an entity of dreams” Lorena joked.

“Sadly no, but it would be nice to be one”. Slopy truck driver named Morpheus sat at the bar waiting for his salad and Lorena, in case to the superstition, took care of that Jason makes him the best one.

“You’re the kind waitress, you make me what I want to eat” he stated.

“Actually, Jason does it in the kitchen.” His warming presence made Lorena appreciated him little more. “Yes, then call the cook” he continued.

“I can’t unfortunately, he’s on the break as the now things are little stagnant at me moment” she answered, thinking to herself how was already two in the morning.

“Stay away from the love. It’s not a odd thing to see” man said looking at the fog forming around the diner. More she talked to him, the unconnected themes multiplied twice. She had no knowledge of how many children he had, or if he even had them. Even if he had ever had a wife or someone in his life. She wanted to believe he did.

“How do you know what is to that feeling” she asked him, genuinely while washing the empty glasses.

“I don’t feel a lot but I fear that love is a feeling that I’m capable of feeling " he elaborated.

“Sure “…. Lorena was considerate of Morpheus's good old memory that did not gave a easy path out to the oblivion. He would hold that part of himself, scattered in a void. Life he enjoyed, joy and laugh. Then he saw a ghost sitting on the next end of the counter table, got scared and wanted to leave. So Morpheus asked her before Lorena wanted to interrupt the cycle of bizarre and unpredictable. “Are you alive?” asked Morpheus sipping his third ice tea. Honestly Lorena wondered how could he do that in such cold weather.

“Sadly not, I’ve fallen down the stairs and lost breath trying to untie my dress” she sat looking at the menu.

Half an hour went by and lady didn’t say anything except her name. Lezabeth. And Lorena cursed herself in that moment because the lady, like she knew what her waitress thought, started speaking.

"That writer talks only about him. Alone. Also couldn’t stop dwelling on the fact that story and telling a story ain’t the same. But talking about stories should make eternity imaginable.

So therefore he was right. I couldn’t imagine myself sitting here no if it wasn’t for a tale. Or my mind stayed on exactly right place, or maybe it would have left in the attic. Without paintings, now turned away from me, I was abounded at cost of my freedom. Some young gentleman who coats himself in embraced morbid curiosity. A wasp exterminator, Mr. Barrett. Then he would walk upstairs, staircase which for my entire life had no end.No talked of him, him alone among a ghost. He have been given ability to recognize”, the lady said. Lorena for first two minutes of the monologue believed that the elder woman was talking to herself, but her glance was directed at her server. By whom she was abandoned, Lorena demanded an answer but as the late hours were holding her awake, she had not bother with a further explanation of the ghost. “He sees me sometimes as an extension of him, a hallucination”.

In the her story, Lorena could see that wasp exterminator, as a man who saw many eyes of anger, fear, resentment, joy and salvation but the most would be regret and guilt, two same yet different words. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for the man. Time crucified ghost with madness. Which it was always arriving last. Morpheus turned to Lorena and said, “Trying to feel sorry for him is wrong. Mind clouded with egoism. Because in truth, nothing he sees is real. Just an extension of himself”.

The weeks could past fast enough when Lorena saw how Lezabeth was consumed by reading an awful papers that were like opium. Papers withour a title or a meaningful beginning. Madeline maybe didn’t know how to write, Lorena concluded. But she knew Madeline now had the other critic then herself when she handed it to Lezabeth.

“It looks like a the story didn’t start in the beginning, Like there is something more behind the first sentence” Lorena didn’t answer the ghosts constructive criticism as she already adapted to the occurrence that Lezabeth can’t be seen by her new customers.

“ Maybe she could have started from the main character’s escape from the University”.

“Cant believe someone was going on a honeymoon in this time of the year, in the woods” followed Morpheus, confused, in the other direction. He was pointing at the TV screen, news channel.

“Romantic, isn’t it” said Lezabeth, slowly dissociating as well as she didn’t believe the television existed after over hundred years in the attic. “Romantic like you falling down the stairs and dying, sure?” Morpheus said lighting a cigarette.

"Yes, exactly like that” she explained all passive and insulted. But Morpheus didn’t bother with that tone of the voice. The sound of the doorbell caught Lorena’s attention as well as Morpheus turned curiously to look at the frightened couple, woman crying while her husband was out of the place and time. Lorena could have guessed that they encountered the car crash which was hour ago on the television.

They sat next to Morpheus, but the thing that intrigued Lorena was that they did not see Lezabeth who still talked about Madeline’s book.

Samantha and Lenzo started ranting about it. Everyone in the diner acknowledged that they were talking about the very same thing Lorena thought about minutes ago.

“No one warns you to pay some attention to the timing of the crash” said Lenzo.

“Then why are you afraid” asked Morpheus and it was impressing to see the old truck driver interacting with everyone who were at the diner.

“Because an axe was left in their car” said Samatha still crying. Because of the news Lorena knew that couple in the crash were only injured and then placed safe in the near by hospital.

“So what?—”

“We ll be accused of the murder” Lenzo almost shouted but it was silent enough for anyone except Morpheus and Lorena.

“Did you accuse yourself guilty of murder?”

“No "

“So it’s not on you , it is a car crash” he finished that conversation trying to change the theme as it shocked him. “Did you know that it’s not smart during this time to be in the woods?We are expecting snow on the road, any day now” said Morpheus.

Lorena had to admit that she liked the customers she was serving that night. Samantha’s mood got better when she placed her hands on the burger she ordered. “I wish I didn’t have those strange affections. When the last day of a meaningful event arrives and when it morphs into a memory. The uncanny bizarre dream” said Samantha. “Only what’s left For me it’s as it’s falling apart. But it doesn’t do that. It starts through a bigger collective picture. The mosaic moving through the consciousness”.

“Don’t compare your ant to another. It will drown you” Lorena said smiling in her reflection on the sink. “What does it mean?” Samantha inquired. “Nothing. It’s life that goes. No matter what we are doing or not” Lorena explained, trying to bring the philosophy she didn’t remember or just didn’t knew how to explain.

Last customer of the night was indeed the wasp exterminator, who was weirdest of them all. At the end of the shift, he dragged himself to the diner when everyone have already left and Lorena wondered where he was all up night. He didn’t ask for much, just a cup of black coffee. As their eyes met, Mr Barrett introduced by Lezabeth, introduced himself again as Joseph and began talking, not wasting any second. “Maybe people are like that, immediately non definable occurrence morphing in an accordance to the nature, in a direction of humanity’s own selfish and small dreams.” said Joseph.

I’m a collection of my own influenced beliefs, Lorena wanted to say but considered that it would have been wiser if she did not share it with a stranger.

“You know” he looked at her badge where her name was written, “Lorena, I wanted to know a language, famous yet mysteriously creative. Well I know it now in every shape and form. I opened the window to let her go down the stairs. It looks like she came to you having no plan of going back to the attic”.

“So she found peace?”

" I’m sure, she did”.

As a bird, she wandered through the diner. Thinking about next customers with exactly same story, few glances of the old ones at her, waiting for their order.

“Why did you give them all the different advice?” he asked.

“Because you can’t give the same advice and treatment to the newly wed woman, an old truck driver and the ghost” she joked and he followed up, half laughing. “You know why I like them, they’re all relatable, strange and overall surreal”. They laughed and in that moment she knew for some occurrence to change , one had to understand the essence of change itself , how small , how lovely, how lonely it has to be. That gave Lorena a glance to change. How it began to interest her. Human is positioned in an uncomfortable state when it is stubbornly resistant to change.

“Sleep well” Joseph said while leaving and she did in fact had an eight hour sleep without any deranged interruptions.