[Content Warnings: Violence, Drugs, Offensive Language, Death]

[This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to real persons or establishments is coincidental]

the front of a restaurant at night with a neon sign

Photo by Simon Ray on Unsplash

The palm trees and bacon grease bid me back—more so the bacon grease. It takes me a few weeks to acclimate to that sublime mélange of cigarettes, alcohol sweat, syrup, and butter that hovers under those yellow lights, but something’s already off. The bacon scent’s a little bit too . . . bacon-y, baconish, baconesque. Wait, where’s Gerald?

“Hey, Paula!” Some lady with skin that somehow looks like that glass look my students were obsessed with a couple years ago wraps her arm around me.

“Um, hi, Miss—”

“Regina Smith, but just call me Regina.” She guides me to the kitchen as she snaps pictures of us both, her gaze on the camo-encased phone I could only describe as a vacant attempt at a smize.

“Nice to meet you, Regina.” I notice her tag says manager, huh? “Hey, do you know what happened to Gerald?” I smile through her camera flashes like a deer in headlights.

“Oh, that old man? He couldn’t hack it with the graveyard shift anymore. He left me to handle it and ran for the morning shift at the Starbuck’s down the street, poor old baby,” Oh I do NOT like the way she said ‘baby;’ I need this money, though.

As I’m clocking in, pretending that this Ms. Smith didn’t have some sort of relation with Gerald, I focus on my punch card, only to realize I’ve gotta’ squint just to read the darn thing. Somehow the lights have gone so dim I may as well be attempting to show a movie to my class before they inevitably cry for their Chromebooks. A flicker hitches, but nobody seems to notice. The patrons eat, talking at what feels like a murmur. Even the soundtrack is so muted it takes me a minute to realize it’s not the familiar jukebox songs. What is this, Denny’s in a Zoloft commercial before the pills hit?

So, the night continues: weird music, weird men that keep staring googly-eyed at Miss Regina while she takes another reel or selfie, weird coffee that just leaves me all breaks, no gas. She heads for the back door. One of those odd man-children exits. I swear the lights pick up for just a brief moment. The music blares; the customers’ whispers rise to jeers and shouts. My coworker Stacy even deflects a chair from a particularly pugnacious 21-year-old. That Zoloft must’ve finally hit the Waffle House walls.

Then that pork stench hisses back. The lights flicker as Regina returns. Her skin somehow glistens more in the newly dimmed glow. She glances at the ongoing chair battle and it grinds to a halt. Stacy’s cursing at that dimwit chair thrower slurs into a confused mumble; the chair-thrower in question freezes, bemusement on his face. Somehow the lamps are even more useless than they were when I clocked in. Regina opens her teeth to a razor sharp smile as she presses record1.

“You know the company policy, Stacy,” Regina caresses Stacy’s chin with one of her camo press-on nails.

“Yes.” Stacy drones monotone. “Please, forgive me,” her eyelids flutter.

“There’s nothing to forgive. How about you take the rest of the night off?”

“Yes, Regina, thank you,” Stacy stumbles through the back.

“Now, as for you, sir, you’re lucky I’m not the type to call the cops; I have something else in store for—”

Just then glass shatters. A howl of wind crashes through. My body wants to bolt, but I’m too dang tired. I knew that caffeine crash would get me eventually! Now here I am on the floor, half-awake as some silhouette saunters among shattered glass and booths of passed-out diners.

“Regina, we talked about this.” the shadow sighed.

“Yes, and you said that I had this street all summer,” wow, apparently this Regina falters before whoever—or whatever the Hell is in front of her.

“Until you went posting TikToks and Instagram Reels trying to make Waffle House Succubus Core some cute trend,” the umbral entity roared.

Then light. Light and heat. Light and heat and some ungodly snarling from both Regina and whatever this other thing is. I crawl toward the kitchen as they duke it out, groping around for my phone in my pocket. The smell of bacon crowds out everything, the smoke creeping in through the kitchen doors only a small note.

I tap the screen: 5%?!? I charged it all afternoon! Good lord, I’m worse than the kids right now and—hold on, lemme duck so that table she just launched through the wall doesn’t concuss me. 4%. Ok, yes, Gerald to call about switching to a morning shift at Starbuck’s? 3%. No, 911, Paula, how rotted are you? 2%.

“Calling Gerald “Griddles” Griggs,” Siri, no!

I lose the ringing amid the blare of the music, now at a fever pitch. A burst of flame through the door, the ringing goes on. And on. Hold on!

1%.

“Who is this?” a woman mutters on the other line.

“Is this Gerald’s phone number?”

“Oh . . . Gerald. Oh, sweetie, I don’t know who you are, but he’s—” it goes all dark.

Thank you for indulging me in this silly prompt. I am in the midst of editing and revising my first poetry collection, so I desperately needed something frivolous in prose form as a palate cleanser. Thank you to gay little th0ts on Substack for the inspiration:

I remember this drama but the way you write it brings it back to life for me. Also, flash fiction idea right here tbh

Now, clearly a Machiavellian side-quest to become the undisputed most famous girl at the Waffle House.

If you enjoyed me in fiction mode, let me know, and I'll probably import the short story I revised from my undergrad days and bring it on over here from Substack.