Black Out
The bustle of nearby tables filled Carol's ears as she sat with her cup of coffee, stirring it idly as she feigned interest in the diner's menu. Squinting at the small text, she tried to concentrate and decide on her meal, yet the woman across from her distracted her thoughts. Nervously, her eyes bounced from the laminated menu to this strange spectacle. She was an older woman, wrinkled with thinly rimmed glasses set daintily on the bridge of her nose. Her khaki pants and multicoloured striped sweater was a strange combination coupled with her hair, golden brown and tied up in a mussed up ponytail, which had seen many days since its last brushing.
Before she could realize how long she had been staring at her, the woman glanced at Carol with a smile. Their eyes met and with a start, Carol glanced back down at her menu.
“That smile. . . It's so strange.”
Turning the page, she continued with her feigned interest as she reflected over the night's events. She had been driving back from visiting her daughter that night when she found the woman alone at the side of the road. Normally, she would have just kept going – but something possessed her that day and made her stop. Before she knew it, the old woman was settled in her passenger's seat – her solemn, smiling face staring out the window. The ride was completely silent. Carol hated silence; it made her tense and nervous. She attempted to brake the ice and asked if the woman wanted to eat. There was no verbal response; she merely glanced at her, nodding with that same, eerie smile.
Carol stopped stirring her drink and softly placed the spoon on a napkin, before taking the cup up slowly in her hands and swallowing the coffee down slowly. As its warmth touched her bones and the aroma filled her nostrils, she realized the old woman was staring straight at her. She placed her cup back down on the table and cleared her throat, taking up her menu once more.
“Are you ready to order?” Carol asked in the nicest tone she could muster.
There was no answer.
She waited for a few moments before continuing, “Well, I think I might have something simple; maybe a salad. It's not good to eat very much this time of night anyway. . . Hey, you know, I never got your name earlier.”
The other woman smiled, and sipped her coffee.
“Oh. . . Well, I'm Carol and. . .” she was interrupted as their waiter stepped over.
“Hello! Is everything alright? You have enough coffee? What can I get you tonight?” He chimed in, cheerfully as he removed his mini-notebook and pen from his front apron pocket.
“Oh! Well, I. . .” Carol glanced at her menu, then across at the woman, and back at the young man, “I suppose I'll have the Chicken Caesar salad, please.”
“Chicken Caesar salad,” he repeated slowly, as he scribbled in his book.
“And, um. . .” She glanced at the woman again, who seemed preoccupied, “I don't think my friend here is ready to order yet.”
He glanced over at the old woman, then back at Carol with a slightly perplexed expression. Yet he simply nodded, “No problem, ma'am. I'll have your salad to you in just a little--”
Before he could complete his sentence, however, the diner was filled in darkness. A startled hush swept over each of the tables.
“Oh man, not this again. . .” Carol heard her waiter mutter, as he made his way blindly to the kitchen.
“The Apocalypse is coming!” A woman yelled from one of the tables, which was followed in fits of laughter and general tomfoolery. People took out their cellphones in an attempt to shed some light on their meals, and lights, both from inside and outside, danced across the walls and ceiling.
Carol gulped, hands folded nervously on her lap. This day was just getting stranger every minute. She glanced across the table, but the darkness was too thick in their corner of the restaurant. She squinted, but she could hardly make out the figure of her strange companion.
“Are you okay?” She asked, both with genuine concern and a slight fear; she waited for a moment, but of course, there was only silence. “These power outages come at the most inopportune times, don't they? This is the first time it's happened to me in a diner, though!”
The darkness continued for a long while. She sat back in her cushioned booth seat and tried to relax, holding her warm cup of coffee in her hands. The rest of the diners had seemed to return to their meals – the clanking of forks against glass plates echoing throughout the room. Yet she was spooked and couldn't seem to think straight, never mind eat. Her waiter had never come back, anyway. She sighed and brought the coffee cup to her lips. She just couldn't wait for this night to be over.
Suddenly, the lights came back. With a gasp, she nearly dropped her cup as the lights blinded her eyes, now so used to the darkness. She placed the cup down and covered and rubbed her eyes for a moment, slowly allowing them to adjust to the bright restaurant lighting. As she slowly took her hands away from her face, her waiter ran over holding her massive bowl of salad.
“I'm so sorry it took so long, ma'am! We were all trying to figure out what was wrong.”
She shook her head and she cleared the space in front of her on the table, allowing him to put the bowl down, “No it's okay. I'm just glad it's. . .”
She stopped. The woman was gone.
“Ma'am?”
“. . .I'm sorry, but have you seen my friend? She was just here a moment ago.”
He glanced at the empty seat and, just like before, his glance returned to Carol with a perplexed expression, “I'm sorry, ma'am. . . But are you sure there was anyone there in the first place? You didn't come in with anyone, and there was no one there earlier. Maybe --”
He continued to speak, but she tuned him out. What did he mean, no one there? She stared deeply into the wall across from her, a mirror which returned her reflection and nothing more. No one there? The thought reverberated in her mind, bewildering and shaking her down to the bones.
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