Time In A Bottle

If Annabelle was gonna get something put on her headstone, she imagined that it would read: “here lies one underappreciated waitress”. It just so happened that today was the 40th day in a row with bad tips. She had enough stored up to make this month’s month, but she had no idea what she was gonna do if this kept up.

Around 3 o’clock in the morning, Ezra walked in. She’d seen him thousands of times before, Grandma’s attic was just a couple of blocks away on Maple, and nobody else was open this late.

Adorned in her dreadful mustard and purple uniform, Annabelle recited, “Welcome to Dan’s Diner, where the food fights back”. Then more casually, “Hey Ezra, how you been?”

Ezra peered over the menu, which he held perpendicular to the table like a child. His eyes flickered like the fluorescent light bulb in the bathroom. Annabelle fumbled with her order booklet and a pen for a second before glancing to meet his eyes. Taken aback by his stare, Annabelle jumped out of her skin and seemingly into a different planet. She was still in Dan’s diner, but the booths weren’t cracked and fading, and the diner glowed yellow from filament bulbs.

Jim Croce played on the jukebox, and Ezra, the electricity gone from his eyes, looked around jaw agape, completely dumbstruck.

We’re in the 70s, he thought.

Annabelle slid into the spot across from him at the booth. Though she looked much younger, she still sported her iconic pink lipstick. Ezra had a box in his lap that had not been there before, and he began nervously fidgeting with the cream colored twine with which it was tied. With haste, Ezra thrust the package into Annabelle’s lap.

Once again, bacon scented words seemed to float to Annabelle, take good care of it. It’ll show you what you need to know. Annabelle looked down at the package, which had her name written across it in a cramped script. When she looked up to protest, Ezra was already hurrying out of Dan’s diner into the pale city night. The box had mysteriously disappeared from her lap. Annabelle wasn’t worried though. She thought she had seen it in the back of her closet with a couple of hat boxes not too long ago.

Here It Goes Again

Annabelle laid out her three outfits for the day and set to work on her hair. She was overdue for a perm, but her appointment wasn’t until next week. With her Sunday best, a spring green dress with a bright beaded bonnet, finally on, Annabelle looked everywhere for her hot pink lipstick.

“Oh Sisi,” Annabelle said to her dog, Sisyphus. “I simply cannot go to the lord without looking my best. I am plain dumb as a bag of hammers! I’ll just have to go to Father Hammond some other time this week. Oh lord, I am so sorry. I do hope you will forgive me, I just ain’t trying to look bad for you.”

Annabelle changed out of her Sunday gown and into her Dan’s Diner outfit. As Annabelle scooted towards kitchen to give one last rummage through her bag for her signature facade, she heard a humble knock at the door.

“Now who would want to come see me in this unpresentable state?” she wondered aloud.

With a deep arthritic sigh from her wrists, she turned the cold aluminum handle and cracked the door a third of the way open, but as she peered around the edge at the hulk of a man with a shell of a person inside of it that stood before him, with yellowed teeth, yellowed eyes, and an exquisitely square jaw hidden under a week’s worth of stubble, she nearly fainted.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Annabelle cried.

“Hey momma”, said Dominic.

A long pause ensued, while Annabelle eyed the rabid chipmunk that she saw at her threshold.
“I cannot believe that you came from my loins”, she said. “I’m going to work, and if you think you have any chance of convincing me of how you’s a better person and all, I suggest you come along. Last I seem to remember, our last meeting ended with you telling me that you hated Jesus Christ, and that you were gonna take that baseball bat with nails in it and get my money. Next I knew, you were in prison and didn’t even call your own momma. I had to figure it out from that falafel vendor you stole from.”

“Now momma you know that ain’t fair”, he protested.

Annabelle edged past Dominic and into the hall, shut the door, and locked it.

“Well let me guess, this ain’t your first day out either. You’ve been kicking around St. ---- for quite some time, I can tell.”

“Now just let me explain momma”, he pleaded.

They worked their way onto the street, full of dog walkers and other church goers. Annabelle was going to go to the drug store to get more Lavish Lip #66, but they headed to the park. The park may be known for rabid chipmunks and saber-tooth tigers, but the lawnmowers had cut the grass recently, and there were hardly and chipmunks to be found. Instead, they trudged right up to the falafel stand, which was bustling on this fine fall Sunday.

“Boy, I haven’t been proud of you since you was a quarterback in high school.” Now, you have a chance to change all that”, said Annabelle.

Dominic pursed his trouty lips, still with fear. He stole a puppet from the stand and had been locked up for months. Now, he had to go apologize if he wanted to get right with his mother. After standing there with him for several minutes, Annabelle sighed, and, abashed that she still sported a naked lip, went off in search of her favorite lipstick, leaving her son standing there.

Birdhouse In Your Soul

Annabelle had lived a long time, longer than she cared to admit. If she had to guess, her eyes had seen a hundred thousand soul windows, people of all sorts, people that just didn’t want to be seen. Of all the eyes she had seen, she remembered her grandma’s the most.

Grandma’s eyes shone like sapphires under the yellow summer sun. Annabelle spent every summer there as a kid, pickling cucumbers and making fresh preserves. There wasn’t a day that went by where Annabelle learned just how much strength a real Southern woman could produce from such a frail body. As Annabelle stared at her picture in black and white, she imagined her eyes of blue, her scratchy voice humming a distant ragtime blues, everything right down to cuts on her fingers from hunting wild blackberries.

When Annabelle opened her eyes, she was in the middle of her grandmother’s garden, a stifling breeze dragging sickly heat through the chimes on the porch. Anna, as her grandmother called her, spun towards the sound, still blinded by the nine o'clock sun. When her eyes finally adjusted, she just stared. She stared at the timid girl in the pink sundress in the way that only a Southern woman can.

As slow as the wind, a name drifted into Anna’s head.

Harley Allen
Every inch of Harley’s body was frozen. The only motion, outside of the chimes on the splintering stoop was a soft hum from inside the house, but she dared not break the little girl’s gaze.

From inside the house, a scratchy voice called out, “Anna?”.

The scratched up door on the back of the porch creaked open, and both girls instantly broke stare, turning towards the door, blinking. When Annabelle opened her eyes, she found herself staring out the window at a girl in a pink dress.

Those eyes were a window to a soul that she would not forget.