The most popular diner in town opens at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday. You’d think there would be a line of people waiting to get in, but no, at 7:01 a.m. I’m the only one. Needless to say, the service is fantastic. One of the only two waitresses present fills my coffee cup and takes my order. The universe seems to be conspiring to affirm what I’ve always suspected: everything revolves around me, my needs, my desires, my Big Bang Breakfast. Outside the sky is clear and blue. Sunlight streams through the long front window, bringing brightness and warmth, though not enough to cause me any discomfort, sitting in the exact middle of the restaurant.

In case you’re wondering whether this might be one of those Plato’s Cave scenarios, I’d say not quite. There are no shadows or flickering lights on the walls, no pale remnants of the glory I dare not turn and face. No, what I get are the sounds coming from what I presume to be the kitchen. I can hear voices. Of course I can always hear voices, but as I am quick to assure people, I don’t always do what they tell me. I can hear someone washing dishes, which is puzzling. Why didn’t they do that last night? As with almost everything else in this world, it’s a complete mystery and all we have are questions. I can hear the ungodly din of what sounds like carts loaded with trays rattling and rolling, coming closer like a Chinese New Year parade, and then a glass breaks, I think, and most of the sounds stop, except for the voices, which get loud with laughter. The gods enjoy breaking things, I think to myself. Usually they’re breaking us, but not today.

Or are they? I would be less than rational and objective if I failed to point out that all this is pure surmise on my part. I can never really know what’s going on in the kitchen, if in fact it is a kitchen. It could be a recording, or a sound effects person for a radio theater production in which I am an unwilling and unaware participant. I could be dreaming. Or perhaps I’ve gone insane and am experiencing auditory hallucinations, not my favorite kind. We must make room for all of these possibilities even while the sun is shining. Especially while the sun is shining.

The waitress returns with my breakfast and asks if I’d like more coffee. I nod. It’s nice to have choices sometimes, even if they are utterly meaningless and trivial. At 7:27 a.m. a young couple walks in and I am no longer alone, except in the sense that I am always and everywhere totally alone, blind yet seeing, deaf yet hearing, as ignorant as the day I was born.

*“The Diner” appears in the Special David Ignatow Section in The Prose Poem: An International Journal (Volume 7, 1998; Providence College); link retrieved on 12 March 2025:
https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1466&context=prosepoem

Bio: Kurt Luchs