A metaphor packed and fantastical other-worldly story inspired from a cover of the song "Tom's Diner," by AnnenMayKantereit x Giant Rooks, so consider this my written cover. I was obsessed with and played this song NONSTOP for like 2 weeks straight.
Linked the song so I recommend to listen to that then read it. And let me say this story is me experimenting with meta-physical and outlandish writing.
“It’s always nice to see you,” a man behind the counter says to a woman coming in.
The man behind the counter is barely hanging on. He looks gray, matching the color that has fallen on the town outside, puddles of the sky’s tears in potholes or overflowing in dying flowerpots. As he walks, parts of his heart, his hope, his will, chips off behind him. What is this life he thinks. Today is a repeat of tomorrow and tomorrow will be a repeat of the same he thinks. His heart pieces sprinkle over the diner, cover the people in the diner, all black like mascara flakes under a girl’s eye.
The woman who came in starts picking up the pieces. She smiles, the whole diner looks at her. She is irresistible, a force that draws their eyes towards her like a drummer’s hand hitting the drum, it is second nature. The drum making a beat, the woman’s lips follow the beat by humming out loud, all the pieces cupped in her hands. She parts her lips, puts the pieces in her mouth, still humming as she walks towards the man behind the counter and gives him a kiss. He starts humming, taking the rhythm from her mouth, swallowing the pieces back.
Maybe tomorrow will be different he thinks. His heart pumps into existence, blood tending to his veins with a nurturing humming that renews his skin pink and plump with life.
A man is sitting at a table alone, staring at the cold spot where his wife used to sit. The empty space is hollowing his bones, a chilling that cannot be restrained with the heaviest of chains. He can’t stop shaking, shaking, shaking. His hands shake around the coffee cup. He’s trying to warm up with his fingers gripping the ceramic, but now the shaking infects his heart. It’s like walking and walking until you walk off an edge straight into the cold, cold Arctic—suddenly, unexpected. I can’t go on without you he thinks.
The woman who came in whispers into the man’s ear who is behind the counter. He looks at the man sitting at the table alone and picks up another mug, the fresh coffee pot, and walks to him. He places the coffee mug in the empty space across him and fills it up while humming. The man sitting at the table breathes in the hot steam rising from the mug across him. The steam, is a retractor splitting his ribs and invading his lungs, until all he feels is warm, warm, warm-- he starts humming warm. He digs out of his pocket his wife’s wedding ring and drops it into the coffee. He swallows the coffee, the ring, and his world stops shaking. Warmth feels nice he thinks.
A boy in the corner of the diner is trying to fit his tiny childish hands in the slot of the toy machine. A toy could make my sister get better he thinks. The sound of hospital machines beep in his ears. He starts to hum, hum, hum, copying the beat of the hospital machine living in his ears. He tries to plug his ears with his fingers but the noise inside his head shocks his fingertips, it hurts to keep them there and it hurts without them.
The woman who came in crouches next to the boy in the corner of the diner. She runs the backs of her fingers from the bottom of his cheek to his ear. She starts humming at a different beat, the same song she has been humming into the air of the diner. She hums into a red rose she has in her hand, the same whisper mother nature speaks into the soil, into the birds, into the bees. The woman places the rose in the palm of the boy’s tiny hand and smiles.
The boy in the corner of the diner plucks each petal—she will die, she will live, she will die, she will live he says. He takes the petals and puts them in his ears. Their silky red flows from his ear to the wires in the machines, melting it all until it starts to sound like the nourishing humming, red silk dripping from his lips. I will sing to my sister he thinks.
The woman who came in smiles, but her color beings to fade. The colors slip off her shoulders, softens down her breasts, vanishes off her thighs, all melting into the diner around her. The people at the diner hum together about the colors of women, of the woman.
Love, AKO
Thanks for reading everyone! I appreciate each and everyone of you for taking the time out of your busy lives to read what I have to say. I pray my words can spark a thought, a lost hope, or a will to reach for the stars inside of you.
I'll link my book insta page which has short reviews, cute quotes, and giveaways.
Picture is not mine, wish it was.