Over Easy

Formica tabletop. Fake wood grain the color of old bruises. The booth's vinyl catches skin like it's hungry. Coffee tastes like burnt offerings.

She's got a pen behind one ear, cigarette behind the other. The cigarette's burnt down to the filter, but there's no ash.

Name tag: Roxy.

She doesn't ask what I want. Just stops, hip cocked, and waits. Her eyes are the kind of dark that light falls into and doesn't come back.

"You gonna order, or just stare?"

"Depends. You serve salvation with the eggs?"

Half her mouth lifts. "We're fresh out. Got damnation on special."

The diner's empty except for us and whatever's dying in the walls. A fly circles the sugar jar like it's praying.

"I'll take whatever keeps me here longest."

She writes without looking at her pad. "Careful what you wish for."

Her uniform's too white. Like nothing sticks to her. Not the grease. Not the smoke. Not the years.

"You always work the graveyard shift?"

"Someone's gotta feed the strays."

She leans close. Smells like strawberries in formaldehyde.

"You're not my first desperate man at 3 AM."

"But I'm your last tonight."

The pen stops. She studies me like I'm a math problem with no solution.

"You don't know what you're asking for."

"Story of my life."

She tears off the slip, drops it face-down. "Order's in."

The kitchen door swallows her whole.

I flip the order slip. It's blank except for one word: Wait.

The coffee refills itself when I'm not looking. Steam rises in shapes that almost spell something.

Twenty minutes. Or five. Or fifty. Time's negotiable here.

She returns with a plate. Eggs broken wrong, yolks too orange, whites still clear in places. Bacon curled into question marks. Toast burnt through in spots, like someone held it over a flame just to watch it suffer.

"Eat up. You'll need your strength."

She slides in across from me. The vinyl doesn't catch her.

"Why me?"

"You walked in. That's enough."

"That's not an answer."

"Sure it is. Just not the one you want."

I bite the bacon. Tastes like regret salted with worse decisions.

"You ever feel like you're already dead," she asks, "just haven't stopped moving yet?"

"Every morning."

"Then you'll understand."

She steals my toast. Her teeth leave no marks.

"Understand what?"

"Why I'm still here."

The lights flicker. In the dark between, she's somewhere else. Younger. Burning.

"I should go."

"Too late for that." She slides a napkin across. "Write your number."

"Why?"

"So I know where to find you."

My hand moves without permission. The pen's ice cold.

She takes the napkin, folds it into nothing.

"See you around."

"When?"

"You'll know."

At the register, the kid's reading a comic from 1987.

"Where's your waitress?"

"Which one?"

"Roxy."

His face goes white. "That's not funny."

"I just—"

"Man, we don't have anyone named Roxy."

"But she just—"

He pulls out a photo. Staff picture, water-damaged. She's in it. Standing in the back. Except someone's scratched out her face.

"She died in '19. Fire. They found her in this booth." He points to where I was sitting. "Table four. That's why we keep it roped off."

I turn. Yellow caution tape I didn't see before. Dust thick as guilt.

"But I was just—"

"Man, you've been standing here talking to yourself for ten minutes."

Outside, dawn breaks like fever.

My pocket's heavy. The napkin's there, folded tight. Her handwriting:

"Tuesday. Same time. Same booth. Don't be late."

The words fade as I watch, but the cold stays in my fingers.

I check my reflection in the diner window. There's a mark on my neck. Looks like teeth.

Tastes like strawberries when I touch it.

I'll be back Tuesday.

Some appetites, once woken, never sleep again.

And Roxy?

She's got all the time in the world.

After all—

The dead don't punch out.