Tag: writing

The Ashwood Grill

No one noticed when The Ashwood Grill burned down.

It happened on a Tuesday night long after the dinner rush, when the last of the barflies had staggered home and the kitchen staff had staggered home and the kitchen staff had scrubbing the grease from the fryer. A faulty wire in the walk-in fridge sparked, caught onto a stack of dry storage, and within minutes the whole place was up in flames. The fire department arrived too late to save anything but a few charred beams.

And yet, the next day, The Ashwood Grill was open again.

Same red vinyl booths, same flickering neon sign, same smell of burnt coffee and stale fryer oil clinging to the air. The menu still had the Tuesday night meatloaf special, still served with a side of lumpy mashed potatoes. But no one noticed.

Regulars wandered in, taking their usual seats without a second glance. The waitress, Barb, refilled their coffee cups with the same practiced indifferent. The cook, Gus, clanged around in the back, flipping burgers on a grill that should have been a heap of melted steel.

Across the street, Joe — the owner of a rival diner — watched with a cigarette handing from his lips. He’d seen the fire. He’d watched the flames lick the night sky, seen the fire trucks roll in, heard the building collapse. Yet there it was, standing just as it always had.

He crossed the street, pushed open the door. The bell jingled. The air smelled of burnt toast and fryer grease.

Barbara looked up, “Morning, Joe. The usual?”

Joe hesitated. “You burned down.”

Barbara blinked and him, unbothered. “Did we?”

“I saw it. I saw the fire.”

She shrugged, pouring his coffee. “Well, you must have been mistaken. We’ve been here the whole time.”

Joe sat and stared at the menu, his hands clammy. The letters seemed off. Fuzzy. They shifted when he tried to focus. The food came. The burger looked normal enough, but when he bit in, the taste was wrong. Not bad … just empty. Like a memory of a burger rather than the real thing.

He looked around. The customers chewed in silence, their faces strangely vacant. The jukebox played a song that didn’t quite exist, the melody twisting just out of reach.

Joe pushed back from the table, his chair scraping against the linoleum. “I gotta go.”

Barb smiled, “See you tomorrow, Joe.”

He left, the door jingling behind him.

No one noticed when The Ashwood Grill burned down.

And no one noticed when it came back.

The Eternal Waiter

There was a man named Gregor who worked as a waiter at a restaurant that no one ever seemed to visit. The building was enormous. An architectural monstrosity that stretched far beyond what was needed for any reasonable number of customers. The windows were perpetually clouded with dust, and the floor creaked with every step. Still, Gregor showed up every day at 11 a.m., precisely on the hour, and stood behind the counter.

For years, he waited.

Occasionally, the door would swing open with a dramatic screech, but no one would enter. Yet Gregor remained, polishing the empty glasses, adjusting the already perfectly folded napkins, and rearranging the menu for no one in particular. The menu, of course, was endless; an impossible list of dishes that spanned all the way to the horizon. Some items, like Essence of Tomorrow and Stew of Yesterday, seemed more like philosophical concepts than food. But Gregor knew them by heart.

One day, in the middle of wiping down an already spotless table, he saw a figure in the distance, at the far end of the restaurant. It was a woman, dressed in a wide-brimmed hat and an extravagant gown that shimmered as though made of forgotten stars. She walked slowly toward him, her shoes clicking on the floor in a rhythm that sounded like the ticking of a clock.

“Hello,” she said when she finally reached his counter.

Gregor stared at her, blinking. It was the first time someone had spoken to him in years.

“Are you ready to order?” he asked, unsure of the appropriate protocol for such an event. It had been so long since he’d expected an actual customer.

The woman smiled, but her smile seemed to vanish before it fully formed. “I don’t know,” she said, gazing at the menu. “What do you recommend?”

Gregor hesitated. The menu was a labyrinth of absurdities, and he knew better than to suggest Beef of Forgotten Futures or Chicken that Should Have Been Left Alone. But somehow, despite the meaninglessness of it all, he felt an odd sense of duty.

“The Soup of Your Dreams,” he said, pointing to a small, unassuming item at the very bottom of the list.

She nodded and sat down at one of the many empty tables, her eyes never leaving the menu. Gregor disappeared into the kitchen, though there was no one there to prepare the soup. The kitchen was, like the rest of the restaurant, a mockery of activity, a space where pots and pans hung still, gathering dust. There was no soup, of course.

He returned to the counter, holding an empty bowl, and placed it in front of the woman.

“Here,” he said. “The Soup of Your Dreams.”

The woman stared at the empty bowl for a long moment. Then she stood up without a word, turned, and began walking toward the door. The door squealed open, but she didn’t exit. Instead, she began walking back toward the horizon of the restaurant, getting smaller and smaller as she approached the other end.

Gregor watched her go. After a long pause, he stood up, walked back to the counter, and began polishing an already polished glass.

It was a cycle he knew all too well. A cycle that, like his waiting, had no purpose and no end. But, like the universe itself, he would continue the motions. The door would open again, no one would come, and the glass would need polishing. Always.

And so, in the heart of the empty restaurant, Gregor waited.