“So,” Todd said while he worked avidly on his fish, “How are you? What’s up in your life? What’s different in the planet?”
“Doing okay, not much at all, nothing that I can tell.”
“Ex iting,” Todd said around a mmouthful of grease.
Lydia chuckled slightly. “Yeah, well, this mis me we’re talking about, after all.”
“You know,” Todd said, pasuin gin his eating to lay one elbow on the table and wave his four arorund in the air, “One of these days I’m just going to steal you away and take you, I don’t know, skydiving or something.”
“A kidnapping, then?”
“No, not at all! Well, okay. Maybe a bit of a kidfnapping. But for your own good!”
“How sweet,” Lydia said wryly. Todd just sniffed.
“Yes, yes it is. You’re right, it is sweet, and you ought to be grateful to have asucyh a sweet, kind, varing, selfless, generous, marvelous,”
“Modest.” Lydia ingerjected.
“Well, yes.” Todd said with another sniff. “IT goes without saying. “Damned difficult to keep being my marvelous, modest self, too – all my excellent traists keep perking up and saying ‘Todd! Todd! Look at us! Be conceited, Todd, you deserve the fun!’ It’s terribly hard to rexist them sometimes”
“You deserve a metal, Lydia muttered under her btreath.
“What’s that you say?” Todd asked.
Lydia opened her mouth to say, “Nothing,” but with a pause and a light shrug she instead went on to say, “I said, ‘You deserve a medal.’”
“Damn right I do. A nmice big shiny one. Possibly more than one.” Todd’s voice and fave were both deadpan, but his eyes twinkled merrily Lydia smiled just a bit.
The conversation having winded down to some sort of clos,e they sat in silence for a wwhile. Lydia moved her milkshake around, ocassionally pulling her spoon out of the creamy half-liquid and licking it off. She caught Todd watching her the third time she did it, and with an almighty blush she went back to aimlessly pushing the conbents of her metal cup around.
Todd blushed, too, and with a small cough carried on with his limpp salad.
The silence was companionable at first, but then Lydia started licking dry lips and glancing at the floor, and todd paid much more atttention to his food than was strictly necessary. Several times, while the other wasn’t watching, one of them opened their mouths to restart the conversation, but paused before they made a sound.
“So,” Lydia finally said, “How’s the food?”
“Bah,” Todd said nonchalantly. “It’s edible. ‘Sall that matters at the moment.”
“Almost comforting in a way, actually,” he continued when Lydia did nothing but nod. “I mean, diner food – you know what to expect, you know? No parsley garnishes, no fancy fruit combinations, no organic food kick – just grease, plain and simple.”
“And this is... good?”
“Well, in a way.” Todd was still chomping down on his food, speaking between mouthfuls. “See, I usually like to feed myself pretty healthily. Working at a nice liberal coffee shop, you know, all of that forward-thinking-ness sorta rubs off on you. I don’t eat much meat,” chomp, “mostly vegan organic, actually,” chomp, “Because it’s better for the planet and for my body and all that, you know? And I mean, although I see the moral,” chomp, “the moral reasoning behind complete and absolute veganism, it just isn’t my thing.” Chomp chomp.
“Anyway,” he swallowed and went on, “sometimes it’s nice for some variety, you know?”
“I don’t know,” Lydia said, somehow managing to interrupt hesitantly. “Constancy can be – constancy can be really nice sometimes. I mean, it’s just as soothing as variety is.”
“Ah, but see, it’s not the variety of the diner food that’s soothing. The variety is just like a bonus. What’s really soothing about diner food is its utter lack of variety – the fact that whereever you go, whatever you order, it will be the same. Hippie food, you know, isn’t like that at alll. Falafel,” he said wryly, “comes in all shapes, sizes, and qualities. With fish like this,” he said, waving around a laden fork, “you know what you’re going to get. I wasn’t expecting anything crisp, or fresh, but nor did I fear that it would be overly spicy or entirely too dry. You see?”
“No, not really.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s like this. There’s this ritual, this tradition – the way things always are, right?” Chomp.
“Okay.”
“And what this is,” chomp,
“Yes?”
“I’m working on it,” Todd mumbled around his mouthful of fish. “This tradition is the fact that diner food will always be greasy, bad for you, heavy in the stomach, and soothing in its fat and salt and sugar. I, for one, always feel more sated after a meal of badly fried chicken and mashed potatoes than even the best tofu.”
“Okay. A tradition.”
“Right. But see, if you did it every day – ate only diner food each and every day – the tradition would grow worse than monotonous. You see?”
There was a pause. “I... I suppose so.”
“Right then. So this tradition, this comforting tradition exists, but I usually ignore it. I eat my veggie food and I love it.”
“But –“
”But,” Todd said triumphantly, “this diner food exists, for me to come back to. No matter what I do, what I eat, how long I stay away – when I decide I really need some, classic American comfort food will pull through and be its same, greasy, unhealthy, salty, heavy, rich, overcooked, soggy, and marvelously soothing self.”
Pause. “Okaaaaay.”
“I mean, this food would still be a little soothing on its own – but also very disgusting, in a way. But when you consider the fact that it will always be there, waiting – well, it’s like. God this is going to sound silly.”
“Well, say it anyway.”
“It’s like coming home. That’s really cliche – but you know, you can leave and come back and its still there, the same as always. You don’t necessarily want to stay, but you need to remind yourself that it’s there – you need to visit for a while.”
“So,” Lydia said consideringly. “You’re...”
“Visiting!” Todd finished around a full mouth.
Lydia nodded slowly. “That’s really quite interesting,” she murmured half to herself.
“No, not really,” Todd said, oblivious to the fact that she hadn’t truly been talking to him. “A speech on my fondness for comfort food – interesting. Sweetie, you need to live a more interesting life.”
“What?”
“A more interesitng life – you know, one where more things happen, where –“
”No, not that.” Lydia was smiling now, a slight ‘I know something you don’t know’ smile. “You called me ‘sweetie,’” she said.
The man across from her blushed bright red, fiddling with his fork. “Um. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Lydia said with a laugh. “Different, and surprising, but okay.”
“It jsut came out, and. –“
”Honest!” she emphasized, truly laughing now. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I quite like it, actually.”
“Really?” Todd asked, his eyes almost childlishly wide.
This time it was Lydia who blushed. “Um... maybe.”
“Okay then,” and with an irrepressible grin, the sweetie-er dug back into the last vestiges of his food.
Lydia was looking at him with a confused expression between her eyebrows. “You do this a lot,” she said in a soft, bewildered voice.
“Do what?” Todd looked up with suprise in his eyes. “Eat at diners? Call women – see, not girl this time – call women sweetie? Date fascinating girls I hardly know? Smile? Because no, we covered that, no, not really, only occasionally, and–“
”Confuse me,” Lydia interrupted gently.
“Oh.”
The tables were turned now, and Lydia smiled at Todd’s befuzzled expression.
“Well... it’s entirely unintentional, I’m sure.”
“I’ll forgive you anyway,” she said breezily, causing him to blink in surprise.
“Wait... you want to be confused?”
“I didn’t say that. Did I?”
“I think you might have, in a round about way.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Oh. Well, do you want to be confused?”
“No! Confusion is bad. It leaves you... confused.”
Well, yes. It is confusion, after all.”
“Um. Yeah. Why are we talking about this, anyway?”
“I think you started it. Anyway, why do you mind confusion so much?”
“I just do.”
Todd waited.
“Things stop making sense.”
He waited some more, but Lydia had stopped.
“Well, yes, I suppose that is bad.”
Lydia sighed and changed the subject. “So were you raised on, um, comfort food?”
“Ah, yes,” Todd said consideringly, “the ever-present food topic. When in doubt, talk about food.”
Lydia ignored his wryness and waited.
“Sort of. Not really. I was more raised on tv dinners. You?”
“I – the same, I guess. I can’t really remember.”
“You can’t remember what you ate growing up?”
“No, not really. I don’t think about it much.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“I just – I guess I’m just surprised that somebody can completely forget something that important about themselves.”
“Is food that important?”
“Well, maybe not food – but your childhood, certainly.”
“Mmmm,” Lydia said.
Have we talked about your family yet?” Todd asked.”
“No.”
“Ah – should we?”
“Probably not.”
“Okay then. I mean – sh-shoot, how, do I say this – I want to know, because I want to know more about you, but I don’t want to know until you want to tell me. Does that made any sense?”
“I suppose so.”
She sighed and bit her lip, looking at the table. Todd put his fork down on his almost eempty plate, looking at Lydia in what could only be considered trepidation.
“But why do you want to know more about me?”
Knocking his elbows down on the table, Todd shook his head. “This again. We really have a recurring theme going here, don’t we?”
Lydia just looked at him.
“Right. Why? Why? Why why why... that’s hard to answer, you know? I mean, who can say. It’s hard to look inside your own head and truly know what’s going on.”
“I guess so.”
“I know so.



—--------------------
“But still.”
“But still what?”
“Still!”
“Yes. Sure. Still.”
“God. Why do you want to know things about me?”
“It’s what friends do.”
Silence.
“Because I like you.”
Silence.
“Because I want to know why you do the things you do – why you make yourself unhappy when you don’t have to. Because I want to know how to help you stop doing that.”
Lydia winced.
“Maybe I want to make you happy. I don’t know.”
Lydia looked away.
“Shit. What do you want me to say? I mean, shit, if none of that is good enough for you...”
“You’re cursing.”
“You’ve cursed!”
“You startled me then.”
“I confused you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re startling me now. And confusing me. Among other things, all of which add up to the fact that I believe that I have every right to say ‘shit,’ and that I am in fact quite impressed that some mild cursing is all that I’m doing.”
“I’m making you mad,” Lydia said with shame and a bitter pleasure.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Fuck.”
He ran a hand through his hair, leaning back against the chair and looking anywhere but at her.
Finally he stood. “Look,” he said, “Lunch was good. It was nice talking to you, and I’ll see you at the coffee shop some time, and I’m sorry if I did something wrong. And probably even if I didn’t. Fuck. I’m leaving now.”
His voice was slightly disjointed and hoarse, and he walked quickly away as Lydia stared at the table in front of her. She realized he’d forgotten all about the quarters.
Her milkshake was melting.

“What was that?”
Dull - voiced, “what was what?”
“That! He just – left!”
“What did you do to him?”
“Let me talk to the girl – what did you do? What did you say?”
“I can talk to her too!”
“Two of us will just confuse her.”
“She looks pretty damn confused already.”
“But do we want to be making it worse?”
“I think that would be pretty damn hard.”
“Maybe so.”
“Lydia, dear, what did you say to him?”
Emotionless. “I asked him why he wanted to know things about me.”
“What?”
Flat. “You know. Why he was talking to me. Wasting his time.”
“You. Asked. A man. Why. He. Was. Wasting his time with you???”
Not quite emotionlesss, not any more. “Not in so many words, but yes.”
“My god.”
“Idiot!”
“Child, be nice. The girl just doesn’t have much experience. She needs coaching, that’s all. I’m sure she’ll be fine at this once she gets used to it.”
Uncaring, but asking anyway – “What’s ‘this?’”
“Relationships.”
Head snapping up, eyes glaring – angry now, all trace of calm obliterated. “What?”
“She said ‘relationships.’”
Very carefully, “I. Am. NOT. In. A relationship.”
“If you say so, dear.”
“I’m not as nice as Marge. You’re just wrong. But you’ll come round.”
Disgustedly. “My god.”
“You know, you’re really good at alienating people, you know that? I mean, there you are having a charming chat with a good-looking, nice guy, and then you go and say something stupid and make him storm out of the diner looking as though the world had collapsed around his ears. You normally ignore us, and avoid people like the plague, and when we come over and try to help you, you barely talk to us and then act like you’re the queen of england. “My god,” you say, like you can judge us, like you have any right whatsoever, which you don’t, you know? You’re no better than we are. Are you really that arrogant? ‘My god,’ you say, like we’re some kind of pond scum. You have no right, no idea–“
”Sally, dear, calm down.”
“No, no I won’t. What’s your problem?”
A little sadly, “I don’t know.”
“Oh? You don’t know? That’s not good enough. Do you honestly think that ‘oh, look at me, I’m sad’ tone of voice is going to get you pity? Because it isn’t, you little bitch, it”
Marge’s hand flew suddenly up and struck Sally’s cheek, hard. “You listen to me. You are going to go out into that diner and clean tables. You aren’t going to take orders, because you’d bite the customer’s heads clean off – trade places with the bus boy for a while. He can handle it. He’d be a waiter if Greg weren’t such a prick. You’ll let Estevan take your orders for you and you’ll clean his tables for him until you’re calm enough that you don’t have to concentrate to keep from breaking the plates, and then you will come back and apologize to both of us. Do you understand?”
“I don’t have to.”
“No, but you will.”
An ugly twist to her mouth, Sally turned and left. Resignedly, Marge turned to Lydia.
“Come on, child, let’s go sit at a table.”
Hesitantly, “Actually, could – could we sit in that corner? Behind the bar?”
“Not as comfortable over there.”
Lydia’s face drooped a little.
“Fine, fine. I’ll never understand you, you know that?”
Lydia had no answer. Marge just sighed and snagged a spare chair.

“Why was Sally mad at me?”
Marge planted her elbows on her knees and looked at her clasped hands. “Why... it’s complicated . You aren’t the easiest person to get along with, you know.”
“But – but I stay out of everybody’s way!”
“Exactly.” Marge soudned grim. “I mean, that works fine if nobody around you has nay interest in every talking to you. At all. But I do hope you haven’t lived your whole life around people like that – and I sometimes wonder just when you got the impression that everybody thinks that way.”
In the background, Lydia could hear Sally slamming plates down on top of each other and muttering curses. Estevan was taking orders in his almost elegant accent, the customers looking at him with distrust but ordering from him just the same.
“But if I’m not a bother, how can I –“
”A bother? What is this about a bother? It’s not question of being a bother. It’s a question of – look, when you try to reach out to someone and you’re continually rebuffed, it starts to hurt.”
Lydia’s eyes were wide and her voice slow, hesitant. “Trying to reach out?”
“Yes, Lydia,” Marge said, exasperatedly. “People want to talk to you. You look like a nice girl, they try to make small talk, and you look off into the distance and ignore them, inserting little ‘yes’ and ‘mm-hmms’ here and here, and saying ‘please’ and ‘if you will’ all the time until people think you’re being sarcastic, mocking them for not being polite enough,”
“What!”
Marge ignored the interuption. “And it gets old. It gets old pretty damn quick, pardon my language. And so when Sally and I actually talked to you today – talked to you, as in a conversation, where you even spoke every now and again! It wasn’t a great conversation, and we spent most of the time filling our silence between ourselves – but don’t you see? A month after you’d started working here we’d all given up on you. We’d decided that it was just useless, that you’d always think you were that much better than us,”
“What!”
“And so we just stopped. But you know, suddenly you didn’t know what to do, for once, and you were talking, for once, and for once other people had the chance to help you and it was fun, and we started to think ‘well, maybe she’ll come round, maybe now she’ll open up to us’ We’re companionable people here, I for one like to talk to people – and Sally, you know how Sally is. It hurts to be shut out.”
“But I —“
”And so then when all of a sudden you drive another person away, and all we want is to help, and all of a sudden you jump back to talking in pointless little words in rare sentences and not saying anything important to us, and not wanting our help though heaven knows you need it, and then talking to us in a disgusted tone of voice – you heard what Sally said, she thought you were talking to us like we were pond scum.”
Lydia would have been close to tears if she hadn’t felt so numb. “I – I never,”
“Now, I don’t think that’s what you were thinking. It’s what you were doing, but I don’t think it’s what you were thinking. I can’t say what you were thinking about, but I would sure like to think it wasn’t that.”
Lydia couldn’t do more than shake her head.
“So do you see? Her outburst- it was rude, and unwarrented, but understandable, do you see?”
The girl nodded.
“She’ll apologize. I suggest you be civil to her when she does. No, wait – you’re always civil. I suggest you be nice.”
“Okay,” Lydia whispered, sounding broken.
As marge stood, grunting, Lydia glanced up from her just-touching knees.
“Mar – Marge,” she coughed out.
“What?” asked the older woman, not looking at her.
“Thank – thank you. And I’m sorry, honest I am.”
“Apology accepted.” Looking wry, the waitress looked at Lydia – “honest I am, eh? I haven’t heard that one in years.”
Lydia blushed and looked down as Marge walked off towards a table where Sally was slamming plates together with only slightly less force than she had been earlier.
Five minutes later, Lydia stood from her chair and started taking orders.

It was a quiet moment, after most of the lunch crowd had gone, and soon Lydia didn’t have a half-decent excuse to be pottering about working. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the diner.
Outside the doors, Sally was standing in the cold without a coat. Lydia shiverred at the chill, but the weather had warmed up just a bit and, rubbing her arms, she managed to stay outside.
Sally didn’t acknowledge her presence, just blew out smoke with her face set.
Lydia took a deep breath at the same moment that Sally’s lips tightened just a bit.
“I’m sorry,” they said simultaneously, and jumped.
Lydia gave a short, nervous giggle that silenced quickly as Sally just drew on her cigarette.
“I am sorry,” the younger girl said, glancing down at the ground.
The blonde grunted, and blew out the smoke in one long, dusty tendril. Lydia had to focus to keep her nostrils from automatically flaring.
Studying her cigarette carefully, Sally finally answered. “Me too.”
There was a silence.
“I shouldn’t –“ they both began at the same time, glancing at each other. Lydia risked a small smile – because it was really quite silly – and this time Sally at least gave a snort of recognition.
“I’ll go first,” Lydia managed to say. She took another deep breath, closing her eyes, and tasting smoke. “I shouldn’t have been so rude or cold when you were trying to help me. I should have been more open and easy to talk to the entire time that I’ve been working here – for the past decade or so,a ctually. I should have recognized your overtures as friendly, and not pushed you away, and I certainly shouldn’t have done it in so rude a manner. I’m sorry that I was short, and that I can be cold. I’ll try to stop, but I can make no guarantees. I’ll – I’ll try.” Lydia said all of this deliberately, and yet she was terrified at the fact that she didn’t think she could have stopped if she wanted to. The conversation was far, far beyond her control.
Thinking back, she realized just how much she had said, and blanched.
Sally was looking at her speculatively.
“Apology accepted,” she said coolly. She took another drag on her cigarette. “And I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Lydia waited, but there didn’t appear to be any more. Sally turned back out and looked at the street once more.
Lydia felt that there ought to be something more to be said – but what, she didn’t know. She was still in shock over just how much she had said not thirty seconds ago.
Still, oughtn’t it to be Sally’s turn now? Wasn’t that how this worked?
Sally seemed to disagree.
Finally, though, the silence grew too much – the older waitress still had an inch and a half of cigarette, and Lydia simply couldn’t bring herself to go inside. The blonde sighed, and asked, “So. Why’d you ask him something stupid like that?”
Lydia wilted. “I don’t know. I’m just – I’m an idiot, I guess. I honestly don’t know.”
“You’re an idiot all right,” Sally said unsympathetically but not unkindly. “Look, he likes you. Don’t question it. That’s my advice, anyway.”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
That stood companionably in the cold. Sally sighed.
“Look, he’s a good-looking kid. I wish you good luck and all that jazz. Now, it’s really really damned cold out here, and this cigarette doesn’t help nearly as much as you might think it would, being flame and all, so could we go back inside?”
Lydia nodded till her neck was sore, and walked ahead of Sally, who was extinguishing her cigarette on the outer wall of the diner, into the encompassing warmth within the restaurant.


Lydia broke with tradition that evening, stopping by the library on her way home from school.
She flitted about the shelves – religious nonfiction, fantasy, science fiction, science, biography, juvenile, bad romances, back-issues of unknown zines – and picked up a book, flipped through a few pages, and set it down with a sigh.
The right book at the right time can pull you out of your life, take you someplace else entirely. It can be a strange experience, confining and liberating at the same time. It can be beautiful – but always, it’s surreal.
Sometimes it’s temporary and powerful, and hour or two where you do not hear or see the real world around you, but then when it’s over you flaot out and look at the fibers of the couch next ot your head and you can see the colors and the weave. You look at the colors and the weave and the way all the trhreads fit together iand it works, it just works ,and you don’t bother counting threads because you know they’re there and that’s enough. And then you get up and make a cup of tea.
Other times, it’s slightly weaker – noises from the real world filtering in, sights scatching your eye when the headiihgts of a car hit the wall across fromyou, and the movement inturrupts the flow of your story, just for a bit. But when it’s over, and you turn your head, you don’t remember to notice the colors of the fabric – that is, you see them and maybe some distant corner of your brain registers the color but it forgets it right away, because it doesn’t matter,. And you count the fibbers because otherwise you wouldn’t know they’re their. You wouldn’t see the individual threads unless you count them, and that would be a loss.
And after a long time staring at nothing and seeing something else entirely, you stand up and you make a cup of tea. But you don’t make if tofr you, and when you’ve drunk it youi can’t say what type of tea it was you just drank, earl gray or chai or chamomile.
You don’t ask, and you don’t wonder at the fact that you don’t ask.
And sometimes – sometimes you read a book, you flip through the pages and all you can think about are fibers and threads, the nature of the world around you – the stains on the ceiling and creaks of the house and the quiet corners of your brain, and the words on the page very futilely try to make an impact on you. They fail, going along quietly, speaking in a hum that sinks to the background as you realize that you really want some earl gray tea, because it fits so well with the shifting of the moonlight and the headlights nad the settling of the house, and that really green and dusty red threads look quite good together. But they’d look better with gray in there, and if you were drinking earl gray tea. When you’ve reached the end of a page, you can’t remember what it is you’ve read and you’ve no desire to repeat it over again.
None of the books spoke to Lydia.


Tuesday morning, the weather was crappy once more. Lydia gave a sigh, wishing that it were spring again – except that in the spring, when it was still chilly in the mornings and much too hot in the afternoons, and you never really knew what to wear – at least in November a sweater was always a safe bet – and it was muddy and the plants were just starting to grow in a way that was quite, pitiful really – in the spring, Lydia would wish it were fall. In the summer, hot and sticky, she would wish it were the winter, cool and crisp – in the winter, gray and cold and mushy, she would wish it were the summer, with the hot dry attic and the soothing thunderstorms.
Grumpily, without nearly enough wryness, all things considered, Lydia considered the irony of it all. Honestly – human beings and the desire for what they don’t have. Or rather, Lydia Greenwald and her desire for the opposite of what she owned.
Human nature, she supposed – if you ever were satisfied with what you had, there’d be no reason to forge ahead, to improve, to progress, to create, to change, to destory, to kill, to steal... it made life damned uncomfortable, though.
Does anybody truly have a favorite season, Lydia wondered. Does anybody truly have a favorite anything? Well, yes, yes they must. Or, Lydia mused, they say they do. Her sister’s favorite season had been summer, her mother’s, fall – her brothers, for better or for worst, always winter, and Brian – he had loved spring.
Lydia wished it was spring, and found herself hating herself for that thought.
Desire. Wishfulness. Discomfort, longing – a desire for change, progress, distruction. Dissatisfaction.
Lydia thought she had left all this behind a long, long time ago.

It wasn’t quite raining – just wet, and generally unpleasant. It wasn’t frigidly cold out, either, for which Lydia was grateful – but with the grayness, everywhere, and a slight bit of early-morning fog, the whole world seemed flat. Somewhere between one and two dimensional – because it couldn’t be one-dimensional, that would just be silly, but somehow even two was more than this day deserved. It was like the dark gray sky bent over onto itself and became the dark-gray and black ground, grew upwards into dark gray buildings, and wrapped within itself as pale gray fog. The only variety was in the pools of yellowish light from the streetlamps, illuminating the swirl of the fog and the utter flatness of the ground.
It was dark out before five in the morning, starless and bleak – maybe when the sun came out the world would grow a new dimensoin, or another two and a half, but Lyda wouldn’t be surpised if it didn’t. All the light did was eliminate the vairety found in the streetlamps, and replace it with the slightest hint of color in the buildings. The sky became the pale gray of the vanishing fog, and the entire world was lit by a scarily constant, unchanging, very very flat light. It was amazing how light could be flat– wasn’t light truly one-dimensional? All it did was move in a straight line – but with so many straight lines bouncing one way and then another, off of things and making curves through the bends, you would thing that light would always bring shape, never erase it.
Lydia found herself remembering diagrams from eighth-grade science, of light bouncing off of curved mirrors, the straight lines bending sharply and going off in an entirely new direction, and what started off parallel, ten straight lines travelling together, to the same destination, at the self-same speed, suddenly breaking apart. Surely the beams had planned on being together for eternity, because that’s the way it is for light, isn’t it? Left alone, it would travel in that straight line at that constant speed forever, and the four beams would travel the universe at a blinding speed, everything around them an exquisite blur but one constant, or rather nine constants – the beams beside them, laughing with.
Left alone, the light would travel together forever, but when is it ever left alone? The light hits the mirror, curved in like somebody gave a neat punch to the fabric of spacetime, and the ones on the corners feel it first. Light travels 1.18028527 × 10^10 inches per second, which is very very fast – and with this mirror, the difference between the outer edge and the middle of the bowl maybe two inches, how many thousands of a second would it take for the careful plans of the light to be destoryed? How many millionths of a second?
The ones on the outside realize it first, feeling in dull panic – because light has no eyes, but his is silly, light has no feelings either – feeling in dull panic the impact of the glass, of the silver, and though the light travelled through lightyears of nothing and even through the madness of the atmosphere, tiny molecules of air disturbing the beams until they realized in shock that in only a few eons the lightbeam second from the right would become a stranger, because they were no longer travelling quite parallel – although it had survived all this, suddenly the lightbeam finds that glass and silver are impervious.
Shocked, the two outer beams turn inwards, rebound through their companions while the others, too, discover this strange truth. How must it feel to be the lightbeams in the middle, to feel the passage of your friends so close to be your other selves, to feel them pass through you and to know that next you’ll meet this strange new twist to reality? How long would you have to await this moment? A billionth of a second, less?
Shocked, the lightbeams scatter, a brief moment of mathematically organized chaos as they pass through each other – do they say their last goodbyes? – and suddenly shoot off in new directions, spreading out like the rays children draw around their suns. They travel new places, in new blurs with no constancy near them, now, just strangers laughing and dancing through their vision while they travel until they are absorbed or devoured or expired. They make friends and lose them in a billionth of a second and maybe in the chaos they forget their past.
But how must it feel, Lydia wondered, to be the middle beam – the one that hit the middle of the theoretical and perfect mirror dead on, where there is no curve to throw off the bounce - the one that is sent straight backwards, along the path they once all travelled together – the one that can’t forget, because they travel backwards through memories– possibly through time – seeing again the familiarly reversed chaos that they’d all seen together.
Lydia growled, actually growled, when she realized she had been thinking about the emotions of lightbeams.
Honestly.

Still, she thought dispassionately as she glanced at the dead landscape around her. It’s funny to call light flat. She’d seen a piece of art once – an exhibit, actually. It was made up entirely of string, of black thread, pinned to the walls and floor of this room. Somehow, the threads never touched, though there must have been hundreds of them going off in all directions. At first it looked like chaos, just an exploded string factory – but soon you realized, walking around and through the spaces that had been left, just big enough to fit a person, that there were patterns. The straight lines, the perfectly straight lines that were never parallel – the arrangement of them had patterns and repeated elements. The straight lines, the perfectly straight lines, worked together to build curves – each turning just a centiment, moved to the left and to the right just a bit, rotating at just a different point, until soon the lines were working together to create dna spirals are gentle bowls and planes and mountains and ripples.
At first Lydia suspected that they weren’t straight, weren’t perfectly straight, because they looked so gentle and soft and ... curving... but rather than asking the guards standing along the walls she followed a string from top to bottom, looking at it and realizeing that it didn’t bend, not once. She followed another bwith her eyes, and another, and she stood there for hours just tracing all the lines with her sight.
They made her leave when the museum closed, with only one spot left unanalyzed.
Lydia thought there should have been a space there – she saw, now, how by taking out these strings and moving these up and those over there would be a curved space left there, just human-sized, gently arching over where the head would be and bending down around sides.
It would fit a person there, trapped by a thousand tiny strings, each so easily broken, bent, sent off-course; easily stretched through were they parallel, easily broken were they alone, easily ignored were they somewhere else – but here, around the soul trapped in the spiders webs, inescapable.
Inescapable and almost invisible in the dark.
Those straight lines, each only one-dimensional, created something of a thousand dimensions – as though each string carried its own reality, and they built together instead of apart.
Lydia shook the memory clear from her head. The light wasn’t flat, she supposed, any more than it was straight, or curved, or bright or dull. It was dead.
She almost laughed as she looked at the dark around her and realized she had been thinking about the hypothetical flatness of a nonexistent light. It was not yet sunrise, and for all she knew the clouds would lift and the sun bring more reality to the world.
She closed her eyes and turned her eyes to the ground and stopped thinking as she walked to work.

Darkness surrounded the pools of light from the streetlamps, deep and somewhat forboding – and not for the first time, Lydia wondered why she felt so comfortable, so... so safe. She wasn’t even a foot and a half tall, she weighed less than 115 pounds, she had no self-defensive skills, she was female, she had absolutely nothing going for her that would prevent in the slightest her being mugged, robbed, raped, kidnaped, or who knows what else.
And yet. Maybe it was her quiet nature, maybe she just exuded something saying ‘don’t bother, I’m not worth it,’ maybe she had a personal guardian angel, maybe she was just lucky, maybe the statistics were wrong, maybe she was right in her irrational lack of fear – but for all the dark mornings spent walking to work, and before that, all the dark nights spent walking around cities, and before that, the dark nights on backcountry roads, and before that, dark late evenings in a fairly quiet neighborhood – she had never once been afraid. Well, she had been afraid – afraid of going home, of getting lost, of not finding anywhere pleasant to sleep, or anybody pleasant to sleep with, of having to choose which place to sleep, afraid of the consequences of coming home dead drunk, or slightly drunk, or hell, just plain happy – but never afraid of being mugged, or raped, or robbed, or kidnaped, or who knew what else.
It had never happened, either. She had passed shady men in dark jackets in dark alleyways, and given them polite nods and walked on and they had grunted or nodded back or ignored her or occasionally told her to avoid Rightleaf alleyway until tomorrow morning, for which she nodded her quiet thanks and turned right instead of left.
It had worried friends, long ago – worried family even longer before. It had never worried Lydia.
Guardian angel, she decided, keeping me from physical harm. And then me, keeping me from emotional fear. For once, we’re working together.
It was dark around her, and flat. Lydia skirted the golden pools of light wchich showed the shifting of the fog, as though the early morning were alive, soft and warm and three-or-four dimensional: or maybe just three, as time didn’t seem to be anywhere at four in the mornig.
Traffic lights genially blinked, yellow, yellow, yellow, and they spoke of time’s passage. Lydia ignored them and focused on the quiet of the houses, and then of the street, and of the scraggly trees that didn’t shift, for there was no wind, and on the bleak stillness of the windowsless factoreis.
The merry windows of the diner were almost an abomination when Lydia first saw them.
She closed her eyes against the sight and stood, for just another moment, in the dark flat timeless world outside of the building – the building of light and people and noise.

Lydia wished to God, if there had ever been a God, that there had been a good book to read on Monday night.

The diner was the same as always when she walked in, busy and not quite loud, not yet, but in the kitchen yawning cooks with hangovers and too much caffiene were overcooking bacon and undercooking biscuits, waitresses were fixing makeup and downing black coffee, and the place smelled of fat and flour and a tiny tint of cigarette smoke, overlaid with sweat and a bit of gas, presumably from the stovetops.
Lydia nodded at the dishwasher, and the single cook who looked up at her presence, and as she transferred her keys and id and money she nodded at the waitresses, and then paused as she realized she was supposed to do something else now.
She wasn’t very good at this. She wasn’t sure she ever had been, though she supposed it was possible. How would you know, really?
She crossed the room with purpose, heading towards the clump of pink, now, instead of the open door behind it.
“Hi,” he said, and Sally, Marge, and Alice looked up at her.
Marge beamed. “Hello.”
Sally gave a nod and a small smile, burying her nose in her thick black coffee.
“Um. Hi,” said Alice, brown eyes confused. She was young, Lydia’s age, and plainer than Lydia but with a beaming smile and enough make-up and a round enough bottom than the men she served more than forgave her for it. She always spoke before she thought, as far as Lydia could tell, but of course Lydia couldn’t tell very much because she didn’t watch quite enough to be able to tell.
“How are you, then?” asked Alice, in a voice slightly bewildered and very curious.
“Ah, okay. I’m okay.” Lydia thought this was the standard response, but it took a moment before she realized what was missing. “And you?”
“I’m fine,” said Alice, still looking at Lydia with something akin to suspicion. Suddenly a grin stretched across half her face – the left half, as she gave a lopsided smile that didn’t quite seem to be expressing joy. “To what do we owe the honor?”
“What?”
“God I hate mornings,” Sally interrupted, pointedly not looking at Alice but managing to glare just the same. “So goddamn early. If it weren’t for the money, I wouldn’t wake up ‘till ten, ever.”
“You could work the evening shift,” Alice suggested blithely. Lydia had been thinking the same thing, but wasn’t sure if she should say it. Hearing Alice, she decided she ought have and felt a twisting in her stomach. She had been wrong. God, but she was bad at this.
Such a silly thing to feel bad about, too. What did it matter? There was another problem, right there. How could she be expected to handle this if it all seemed to matter much more to her than it truly ought to.
She realized Marge was glaring at Alice.
“I need the afternoons for my other job,” Sally drawled out in a very pointed manner.
It took a few seconds for Lydia to realize the implications of that.
“And the other job for the money,” Sally continued ruthlessly.
“To pay my bills, you see. To keep from going bankrupt.”
Alice was trying not to look horrified.
“Because of debt, you see.” There was a gleam in Sally’s eye, midway between triumph and predatoriality.
The slightly chubby brunette was blushing up to her hairline, giving her foundation a strange appearance. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Whatever for?” Sally asked, in a knowing, slightly superior voice.
Lydia didn’t feel relieved to discover that she’d been right, after all, in not mentioning it. After all, now she felt afraid to ever open her mouth and say anything, and it didn’t seem like that would be a good way to have a conversation.
After all, right now what she wanted to ask was what the debt was for, and that would be so absolutely the wrong thing to say that it was funny, really, and it made her want to laugh because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, but if she broke into hilarious laughter they would think she was laughing at them, which was wrong, but she couldn’t say what she was really laughing at and it would be so bad that it was funny, really, and it was funny how hard it was getting to hold back hysterical laughter and –
Lydia gave herself a powerful mental slap.
“That the reason for all the coffee, then?” she asked in a slightly croaky voice.
Startled, all three women looked at her. Lydia felt like dying, or sinking into the floor, or possibly both.
“Because you don’t like the mornings,” she finished pitifully.
“Nah,” Sally said, taking a big gulp of what looked like mud, “The coffee is just to keep me awake. The cigs and the complaining, those are because I don’t like the mornings.”
“Ah.”
“Honestly, though, I don’t see how you can do these mornings without caffeine in your system. Unless maybe you drink a pot at home, because I never see you drink any here.”
“I don’t really like coffee,” Lydia answered, wondering why it was only her and Sally talking. Was that the way it was supposed to be.
Alice laughed, a slightly harsh giggle. “Dear, nobody likes coffee – not at first, anyway.”
“It’s like all the other drugs in reverse. You hate it till you need it.” Sally sounded authoritative.
Lydia just blinked.
Marge scolded. “Sally, don’t be filling the minds of young impressionable, good souls with thoughts of drugs.”
Laughing again, Alice said, “Oh, she couldn’t fill my mind much fuller than it already is. I could have told you that most drugs you love ‘till you’re hooked. And a little beyond, actually.”
Marge sighed.
“I wouldn’t know,” Lydia said in a little voice, and the three looked at her again, Marge slightly triumphant. “After all,” she continued, “I never got hooked.”
After a moment, Alice collapsed into giggles as though it were the funniest thing she’d heard in years. Sally smiled into her mug, and Marge just shook her head slowly, a slight grin peeking out of the corners of her mouth.
Lydia blinked. That was funny? Well, funny was good. Even if it was unintentional.
Maybe.
Lydia decided that she could just look deadpan. Maybe if she just looked deadpan, all the time, they wouldn’t know whether she was joking or not – and that it wouldn’t matter that she didn’t, either.
Besides, deadpan humor was good. Lydia had always had a fondness for straight faces.
The thought that she could be funny, though – life was strange.
Somebody was talking. “... and if it weren’t for the coffee, I know for a fact that there is absolutely no way I would ever be able to stay awake ‘till noon if it weren’t for this damn coffee. Honestly, Alice, you make the worst coffee on the planet.”
Alice sniffed and looked at Sally with an expression that contained malice only as mocking as the blonde’s tone of voice. Lydia thought she knew how much it was a joke – mostly a joke – but it wasn’t quite possible to say. Marge just shook her head. ‘She seems rather fond of that,’ Lydia thought. “Well, you drink enough of it.”
“It’s all there is!” Sally said, her expression looking comically desperate. “Without my coffee, I would just collapse into a snoring heap on the middle of the dining room floor!”
“And then all the men would take the opportunity and look up your skirt, and just think how awkward that would be,” Lydia said without thinking.
“Might improve business, actually,” Marge said, sounding contemplative. Lydia was just glad that somebody else was talking before she had the chance to blush.
At Sally’s incredulous glance, Marge grinned cheekily.
“You just need to learn how to sleep,” Lydia said.
Sally raised one eyebrow elegantly while Alice planted her fists on her hips, and Marge just waited.
“See, I’ve always had a tendency to sleepwalk,” and Marge rolled her eyes, already anticipating what was coming, “And so after that, it only took a few years to figure out how to sleep-waitress.” Alice raised both her eyebrows, a ‘is that it?’ expression.
“Among other things,” Lydia said, her voice wry but her face expressionless.
Alice looked at her in confusion, Marge just blinked, but Sally broke out into laughter, throaty and enthusiastic.
“Good lord, Lydia, I don’t even know how that was dirty, but you managed to make sure it was.
Lydia just shrugged, while Alice finally broke into a giggle and Marge shook her head slowly back and forth.
“Let’s get back to work, shall we?” Lydia suggested.

When Lydia stopped at nine for her mid-morning meal, Alice came over and hung out near her while she ate.
“Don’t you leave soon?” Lydia asked while she pulled at her bacon.
“Yeah, I just figured I’d talk to you before I left.”
“Mmmkay. Why do you work so early, anyway?”
Alice shrugged. “Best job I could get. I dunno. I get to catch all the evening soaps, too. Anyway – why’d you suddenly start talking to people?”
Lydia gave a sideways little smile. “Why, huh? I’m starting to hate ‘why’ questions.”
Alice just raises her eyebrows.
“I dunno,” Lydia says, moving her food around with her fork.
“It’s just – well, Sally and Marge talked to me. And I realized that I was actually being kinda rude.
“Kinda,” alice snorted.
“I never meant to!” lydia protested. “As a matter of fact, I was trying to be polite. Keep from intruding where I wasn’t wanted. I just – I don’t know. I”m shy now, I guess.”
“Now?” Alice asks, apparently a lot sharper than she looked.
“Yeah. Now.”
“Is there a story behind that?”
“Isn’t it time for you to go?”
Alice waved a hand dismissively. “Daytime soaps can wait,” she said.
Lydia sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I just lost my nerve.”
“Oh, come on,” Alice said, pulling up a chair and grinning like a cat in a milk barn. She almost bounced in anticipation. “Tlel me the story,” she insisted.
“There really is no story.”
“There has to be a story.”
Lydia ground her teeth slightly. “I never was very outgoing to start out with.”
“But presumably you talked to some people. And you talk now like you aren’t afraid to. Sometimes. So?”
“I don’t know. Things happen,” Lydia said tersely.
Alice cocked her head to the side and half-lowered her eyelids, tilting her head back. Lydia decided it was really obnoxious.
She tried to keep eating.
“Come on!” Alice insisted. “I want to hear the story.”
Lydia snapped, very very quietly. “Look,” she said, putting down her fork, “There was a bad relationship and it hurt. Among other things. So I withdrew a bit, and then I got used to it. That’s all.” Her eyes looked imposing, but Alice didn’t notice.
“Ooooh!” she said, bouncing again. “Relationship woes. Tell tell tell.”
Lydia took a deep breath, prepared to say something that was definitely not the story – really, truly not the story – most definitely, wihtout a doubt not the story – because there was no way, no way on earth she was about to tell this creature the story – there couldn’t be a way, could there? – and just as Lydia realized she honestly had no idea what she was about to start saying, Sally said,
“Oy! Alice, go home and live Lydia alone so she can eat and get back to work! We need her, and you’re distracting her!”
Alice pouted, and Lydia closed her eyes in relief.
“Fine,” Alice said, and then winked at Lydia. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Lydia nodded, unable to conjure up the strength to disagree.
“Thanks,” she said to Sally.
Sally snorted in reply.

In the afternoon, Lydia realized that she probably ought to go to the coffeeshop.
And apologize.
Damn.
With a thump, she threw herself into her chair and moaned into her hands, bending over with her knees on her elbows and her fingers over her eyes.
“Why, why – dammit, more whys – why am I so bad at this? Why do I have to do this anyway? If I don’t go back then maybe he’ll just forget about me. Shit. Dammit, I just cursed – dammit, I just cursed again, that’s like four times in the past thirty seconds. Fuck. I don’t – apology’s talking, awkwarndness – I didn’t mean to! Maybe he doesn’t want an apology. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to me just yet. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to me ever. How can I apolgize to him if I don’t know what I did? What did I do? Why did I do what I did, why why why am I so bad at this, was it always like this? Fuck. Dammit, why am I nervous – why why fuck why’s, I officially hate the word why, and oh dear lord I’m talking to myself. Only crazy people talk to themselves. I’m officially going crazy. I have to go apologize to him. Fuck. What on erath did I do? What am I going to do? Fuck him, I don’t know what to do!”
“That would be a bit premature, I think.”
Lydia sat up with a start. “What??”
Sally grinned. She lounged against the wall of the diner, and Lydia irrationally thought that Sally really needed to be holding a cigarette.
Smirking, the blonde said “You can, of course, but I didn’t think you were that kind of girl.”
Lydia blushed up to her hairline and looked down.
“What did you do, you ask?” Sally reclined against the wall, putting back her head and baring her throat, one long heel hooked over the baseboard, and Lydia once again thought dumbly that she needed a cigarette.
“You pushed him away, dear.”
“How?” Lydia had finally found her voice.
Sally rolled her eyes, but looked down at Lydia fondly. “You asked him why he was hanging out with you, right?”
“Um. Something like that, yeah.”
“And what did he say back?”
“I- I don’t remember.”
“Sure you do. Come on now.”
“He said... umm, because we’re friends – and then because he liked me – and then a lot of stuff about how I don’t make myself happy and he wants to know why and –“
Lydia paused, and Sally waited.
“And he wants to know how to make me happy.”
“And what did you say?”
“Lydia looked down, ashamed. “Nothing, really.”
“And he said?”
“He said, she said,” Lydia said with a demented chuckle. Sally glared at her. “He said,” and her voice dropped. “He said, ‘If none of that is good enough for you, then what would be?’ I think.”
“Ah. And what did you say after that?”
“I. Um. Well. He had cursed, you see.”
“Oh my god.”
“So I just told him that he’d cursed, and I didn’t like it. That was all!”
“Damn right that was all. I imagine that then he threw a little fit and left?”
“Something along those lines, yeah.
“You are something else, you know that, Lydia?”
Lydia looked down again. Sally sighed and turned, on hand on her hip and one shoulder pushing into the wall. She looked down at Lydia with a maternal expression on her face.
“Do you have any idea what you did?”
“No.” Yes.
“How like a man...” Sally sounded amused, but Lydia just looked up helplessly.
“All right. You ask him a question that sounds like you’re trying to get rid of him.”
“But-“
Lydia raised the hand on her hip, putting her palm out in a ‘Calm down, shut up, wait’ gesture. “Let me talk. You ask him a question that sounds like you’re trying to get rid of him, and then when he answers, you don’t reply. He thinks he has to tell you the right reason or else you’ll leave, or not accept him, or somethin.g So he does his damnedest – to tell the truth, apparently. Some guys would just do their damnedest to say what they thought they wanted you to say, but he sounds like he was spouting off truth and not cliches.
“So he bares his soul like this, and what do you do? You criticize the words he used! I mean, shit, girl, what impression are you trying to give the guy?”
Lydia scrunched down in her chair, as though she were trying to hide.
“Look, I’m not trying to be critical, I’m trying to help.”
“I know,” Lydia said in a very small voice.
“It’s just – you made it sound like you didn’t want him, but didn’t even care enough to tell him so. That’s harsh, you know? And I know that you didn’t mean it like that, and he probably knows that you didn’t mean it like that, but it’s hard to believe something like that for too long. If he did, he’d have to be unbearably cocky and not worth dating any way.” There was a memory in Sally’s eyes, but when Lydia glanced up she thought that it wasn’t right to ask about it – not right now, anyway.
“You need to apologize for acting like such a frigid bitch, and then you need to convince him that you really do want him. Which you do.”
“I, I think so.”
“It wasn’t a question. Any idiot could tell just from watching you – except you, of course, because you are an idiot who can’t watch you. Which is a major problem in relationships, as far as I can tell. Anyway, you need to conquer his self-doubt and nagging voice of low self-esteem. You understand?”
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it...” Lydia managed to force out.
Sally laughed a little, a low sound.
“Oh, you’ll accept it all right. Look, just go talk to him, okay? How bad could it be?”
Lydia looked up incredulously. “Bad,” she said solemnly, eyes wide.
“Okay,” Sally conceded, “It could be bad. Go do it anyway.”
“What if - -what if I screw up?”
“Then you screw up,” Sally said solidly. “Shit happens. Except for when it doesn’t, in which case life is damned boring. Now, get out of here before I kick you out.”
“Yes. Yes, I will. God, why am I scared, Sally?”
Sally sighed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. She put a hand on the wall and ran the other through her hair, looking at Lydia in exasperation. “Because you’re human and you want him and you’re afraid that you’ll screw up.”
“What if I screw up??”
“I already said. You screw up. It hurts. You get over it. Leave.”
“Leaving.”
Lydia half-ran to the door, and Sally leaned against the wall, watching her.
With a sigh, she dropped into the chair, automatically adjusting her skirt and crossing her legs at the ankle.
“God, I need a cigarette.”

On the way to the café, Lydia mumbled to herself, not consciously noticing the cold. “Oh god. I know I’m going to screw this up. Why am I even bothering to come? I’ll only make things worse, I know it. Oh, god. Shit. Now I’m cursing. I need to stop cursing.”
Luckily, there was, as usual, almost nobody out on the streets. Lydia wouldn’t have noticed if there had been, but still the fact ought to have been somewhat comforting.
“Okay. Apolgize for being a frigid bitch, and convince him that you do want him. Easy. I – I can do this.”
She stood and stared at the door for a few seconds before finally pushing it open.
“Right. I can do this. Easy.”
The black-haired girl – Diana, that was her name – stood behind the counter, serving somebody. Lydia stared dumbfoundedly. This sure wasn’t supposed to happen.
After looking at the counter for a few moments, Lydia finally, slowly walked over. The man in front of her had taken his order, and glanced at Lydia with a slight bit of interest as he crossed to his table carrying his mug. Lydia didn’t stop to wonder why.
Diana smiled at her. “The usual, then?”
With a snap, Lydia pulled her mind and her face back together. “Oh! Oh – um, yes please. Blue mug, if you will.”
“Of course, of course,” Diana said cheerfully as she started taking mugs off the rack. “ It may take a few moments, I’m afraid.”
Lydia glanced at the shelves and saw that the closest blue mug was tucked far back on the shelf. “I’m sorry to be a bother,” she said guiltily.
“No bother at all,” Diana answered, still cheerful despite the growing pile of mugs on the table.
As the porcelain chinked, Lydia worked up her nerve. It took a few seconds, drawing in breaths and letting them out again, but she finally managed to say, quietly and haltingly, “Where’s Todd?”
“Back in the kitchen – oof, finally! One double mocha latte in a blue mug, coming right up. Would you like me to call him for you?”
Lydia had just opened her mouth to say something – what, she wasn’t quite sure – when somebody else answered instead.
“No,” Todd said from the doorway into the kitchen. He was scowling slightly and leaning into the door, wearing a brown dog collar that matched his shirt, and why was Lydia thinking about his clothes? She ought to be thinking about other things, like what the fuck did she do now?
“No,” Todd continued, “you don’t need to call me, and no, she most certainly is not getting a double mocha latte.”
Lydia just stared, dumfounded. Diana raised her eyebrows and said simply, “In that case, I’ll get out of the way.”