The Reading Room

Vince was sitting in the corner booth of his least favorite diner, Blue Sunday. It was Christmas Eve and as was usual for this time of year, the diner was filled with a hodgepodge of yuletide wishers, home-sick truck drivers and sundry other characters just passing through town. The sounds of angry car horns and Christmas carolers invaded the compact room as the ‘pretty-boy’ in a business suite opened the glass doors; no one seemed to notice except Vince. He noticed everything. Right now he noted that the lone waitress, Charlene according to her dangling name tag, was clearly harried and tired and didn’t have a kind word to say to anyone. Stains dotted her drabby khaki dress and her third button was missing from the top down, giving anyone who cared a glance at the white bra she wore underneath. ‘I bet her stocking’s gonna be full of coal this year.’ This thought was accompanied by a grimace, not a smile; Vince didn’t smile anymore. He didn’t have anything to be happy about and saw no need for anyone else to be happy either.

He unconsciously traced the jagged scar snaking its way down the right side of his face. It was swollen and ran from the top of his temple across his cheek and ended just under his chin. It had been a year ago today that his once handsome features had been destroyed in a terrible car accident. The same accident that claimed the life of the only person he’d ever loved. Nothing had been the same since. The scarlet tissue was a constant reminder of that day and he hated it.

He had never been what you’d call a ‘happy man’; life had never been kind enough to warrant that. But his life had slowly begun to change for the better the day he met Gladys. Now that she was gone Vince had become moodier and more withdrawn than previously. His disposition, like his face had changed to a dark and disturbingly repelling one. The laughing fat man sitting in the booth facing him grated his nerves; he wanted to grab the slob by his fat neck and squeeze until he couldn’t laugh anymore. As he thought this the fat man reared back his head and laughed even louder; specks of gravy and turkey escaped his gaping maw, their juices oozing down each corner to his chins.

The specks bothered Vince more than the laughter. It bothered him a lot. The greasy menu beneath his hand bothered him. The gum smacking waitress bothered him but that laughing pig bothered him most of all. His other hand left his face and curled into a fist; it was time to make the laughing pig…stop, time to make the noise stop, time to make the…pain stop.

The boisterous man didn’t notice the dark-haired stranger’s eyes. And he didn’t notice as the man approached his booth – he was too busy enjoying the joke that his daughter had just shared with him.

It hadn’t taken but five steps for the long-legged man to reach his destination. Time didn’t slow, the chaotic sounds of the diner’s occupants didn’t come to a screeching halt and the fat man barely registered the uninvited guest as two calloused hands reached for his double chins. Three minutes had passed between the moment Vince had left his seat to the time he stood choking the life out of the fat slob who was vainly trying to escape his grasp. Although he was a large sized man and was capable of many feats of strength the poor fellow didn’t stand a chance against the monster who was now trying to snuff out his life!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kara!” Someone was giving her shoulder a vigorous shake, “Kara honey, wake-up!” Her mother was kneeling over her with a look of distraught concern on her face. Kara was lying on the bathroom floor and was wearing no more than her pink bra and panties. The tile was cold, but that was okay. The cold helped bring her back to reality. She moaned a little, and blinked her eyes a few times; she raised her hand to the dampness on her cheeks. She must have been crying. “Kara honey…did you…did you have another spell?” What her mother quaintly referred to as her ‘spells’, was in fact moments of pre-cognition. These ‘moments’ or ‘spells’ often left her dazed at best, at worst she was sometimes knocked completely unconscious.

She’d been in a car accident a little over a year ago and ever since she’d been “blessed” with the ability to see future events. The disaster that she’d just witnessed had been a doozy. Kara belatedly answered her mother’s question, “Yeah mama, I had another spell. Don’t worry; I’ll be alright just…help me up.” While her mother fussed and worried over her, Kara thought, ‘I’d better give the sheriff a call’.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vince’s hands, unlike his face were quite beautiful. They were slender, but powerful, his nails were smooth with the pink flesh showing clearly underneath. Those beautifully sculpted hands encircled the neck of his intended victim and although his whole frame shook with a raging violence, Vince’s hands were as steady as a rock.

The back-ground sounds of the diner slowly morphed from the steady but up beat noise that had irritated Vince earlier into the drone of a thousand swarming bees. He heard the high-pitched scream of a feminine voice off to his left but that didn’t bother him. Because before him was the bulging pleading gray eyes of his victim. He calmly noted that his senses were heightened to an unbelievable level; he could actually smell the sour sweat of the rotund turkey eater as he pressed forward for a better grip. The beautiful young lady previously sitting in front of the man he was trying to kill was now pouncing on his back like a rabid red haired poodle trying to force him away from his prize – he wanted to smack her. Instead he leaned forward and squeezed tighter. He could feel the man giving way to the pressure, soon he’d yield completely and then Vince would deal with the snapping dog at his back.

In a detached part of his mind Vince wondered why, in a diner full of people, was there only one trying to actually stop him. What for instance was the young business man doing at this moment? Was he hiding behind the peroxide- blonde waitress? Or maybe he’d gone to take a convenient bathroom break. Or maybe it was his scream that he’d heard. At the thought of that he astonished himself by snickering aloud – the brief moment of levity was interrupted by the inevitable sounds of police sirens drawing near. Vince knew it was the pretty-boy that had made the call, ‘Probably one of those blasted cell phones,’ he thought.

The yapping woman abruptly retreated from Vince’s back and her long manicured nails gave way to a trimly muscled forearm trying to force its way around his neck. One of the diners must have gained some nerve at hearing the sirens. “Someone, for God’s sake help me!” a high tenor rang in his ears. Two or maybe it was three “men”’ worked their way through the fright stricken crowd and came to the tenor’s aid. Vince could have finished off the slob if he’d wanted to right then and there but the police cruisers were directly outside now. And besides, he was tired. All the rage and pain from loss that had pushed him over the edge and given him purpose had deserted him and all he was left with was the thought, ‘What would Gladys think’?

Two hours later found him in the holding cell of the local police station. It seemed that no one from the diner had called the cops after all. The town’s resident psychic had had a vision of him choking the fat man and had tipped off the sheriff just in the nick of time. Vince rested his back against the cell’s ashen gray wall and looked upward, “Gladys, you hearing me babe…? Did you stop me somehow? Was it you that showed that girl what I was up to”? If there was an answer in the flicking sounds the fly’s wings made against the cell’s one light bulb, Vince didn’t hear it.