Insomnia

A woman suffering from insomnia and desperate for company, drives around looking for someplace--any place, really--that's open twenty-four hours.


I hated cigarrettes; the taste, the smell, the way it left a film on the roof of your mouth after one too many in a day. What was I supposed to do? When you're going on another hour of sleeplessness, there's only two things you can do. You can eat or smoke and Hollywood told me I should die skinny so I chose the smokes.

I crushed the butt in the ashtray and glared out at the neighborhood. Everyone was asleep. The houses all looked the same with tan siding and gray roofs. All their windows dark, not a sound out there to disturb their sleep. I hated them. Hated them all. I could imagine my neighbors cuddled up in their beds, enjoying their 1200 thread count cotton sheets.

I had to get out of the house. It was driving me crazy. I grabbed the car keys and slammed the door behind me hoping it disturbed someone out there. No place in mind, I didn't even pay attention to my directions; just drove. Maybe a neon sign somewhere would flash across the dark sky like a trashy little beacon to come hither. Were bars even open at three a.m.?

It'd been close to an hour when I found a diner on the side of the highway. The flashing neon sign that told travelers to stop at Moe's on the next exit was bigger than the actual diner itself. I wondered if they ever had airplanes circling the area by mistake. I wasn't going to stop but I forgot my smokes at the house so I guessed it was my turn to die fat.

Inside, it smelled of grease; every kind of grease imaginable. There were no other patrons, just a woman in an old time pink waitressing uniform, thin wisps of hair pulled back from her chipmunk teeth. She was tall, amazonian-like with arms the size of small tree trunks. She looked hardcore; like she was the waitress, cook, busboy, and bouncer all rolled into one.

"What can I do you for?" she asked, no greeting or hello. Her voice was raspy, like she'd been smoking for more years than the Earth had rotated around the sun. Suddenly I didn't care if I died fat, and I resolved to throw my pack of smokes away the moment I got home.

"I don't know. Do you recommend anything?" I asked, feeling out of place.

"For?" She put a meaty hand on her equally meaty hip and stared down at me like she had no time for this.

"Something to help me sleep." I said, starting to feel uncomfortable under stare. She led me to a table bathed in the blue and orange light from their sign. It wouldn't have been worth mentioning if the light hadn't been half a mile away on the side of the highway.

"Yeah, we got something for that. Best damn blueberry pie this side of the damn state," she said it with a bit of venom in her voice, as if there were actually some vile opponent on the east side of the state she'd had in mind when she said the words.

"Okay, I'll take two slices, and a glass of milk. Please," I tacked on, afraid she'd do something amazonian like and constrict me with her tree trunk arms.

"Right away," she sneered back at me, and disappeared into the kitchen.

I sat there for nearly ten minutes before she came back out, two slices of blueberry pie, the steaming swirl of its aroma deliciously noxious long before she even put the plate in front of me. She practically slammed the glass of milk down, the liquid sloshing over the edge of the glass and down onto her hand and the table.

"Eat up. It doesn't help you sleep if you dally over it and let it get cold." She warned, then walked away and back to the kitchen. She didn't return as I took the first bite, or the second, or even as I greedily dug into the second slice of pie.

I'd just about finished the second slice when my eyes started to get heavy. The half glass of milk didn't help either. I felt a little dizzy as I reached for my wallet. If I tried to stand up, I knew I wouldn't make it a half a second on my feet. That's when I noticed the waitress coming back from the kitchen. This time she had someone with her.

He was tall, even taller than her. He wore an apron, and giant rubber golashes the color of muddy water. The only other thing I could focus on was his bald head. Was it just my sleepiness or was his head the size of a globe?

"Herman has been waiting a long time for another wife. Don't you worry now. We'll take good care of you," the waitress said, smiling a gnarled, toothy grin. She walked to the door and turned the lock. Suddenly, the room went half dark. I turned back to the table as Herman picked me up in one arm. The highway sign had died, the light disappearing into the black sky somewhere out there in the distance.

I wanted to scream and kick but I closed my eyes instead, hoping when I opened them it was some pitiful dream and I wasn't really strapped to that chair.