#108

"A Lovely Day in the Global Village: A Story About No One in Particular"

By John Drake

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When I got into the diner, there was space for only One at the counter. I inserted myself there, between a heavy-set woman devouring a stack of pancakes and a lean man sipping tea, over a half-eaten breakfast of bacon and two eggs. The sounds of traffic moaned through the background like a whisper.


I ordered eggs and sausage, and settling in with a cup of coffee, I looked over the front page of the New York Times.
"Believe that?" came a voice from my left. The tea-sipping man was looking over my shoulder at the paper.
"Believe what?" I asked.
He waved at the lead headline: "IS PEACE FINALLY AT HAND?"
"That," he said.
"I don't know," I replied. "I guess I do."
"Just words," he harumphed, and took another sip from his cup.
"I beg your pardon?"
He arched an eyebrow. "Have you done something wrong?"
"I'm sorry? What?"
"How should I know? You're the One who's done it."
"Look," I sputtered, "do I know you?"
"I imagine not," he replied, and he studiously looked all around the diner, everywhere except at me.
I looked back down at the paper, staring intently at the words, trying to block out that presence beside me.
"Do you believe everything you read?" came the inevitable question.
I didn't look up.
"In the New York Times? Yes," I replied, as curtly as possible.
"All the news that prints to fit. Tell me what that means, 'peace is at hand.'"
The paper crumpled slightly in my grip as I turned to face him. "What do you think it means, for God's sake?"
"Peace can mean different things to different people," he replied, trilling his Rs so slightly. I realized then he had a British accent. One of their famous eccentrics, no doubt, but none the less annoying for it.
"Peace is peace."
"And 'at hand?'" he asked.
I was growing angrier by the moment.
"At hand. It's common enough."
"Common isn't the same as clear."
"It's clear as day."
"Which day? The haze seems rather thick out there to me this morning."
"You seem rather thick to me," I snapped.
"Thick as a brick," he replied, unperturbed by the insult. "Or perhaps just thick-skinned. Tell me, have you peace in hand, or simply at hand? Is a peace in the hand worth two in the bush?"
"I've got no peace at all with this nonsense. Why don't you leave me alone?"
"I'm giving you a loan. I'm loaning you a peace of my mind."
"This is madness," I groaned.
"A simple conversation. Hardly a peace of the action."
"What is it you want?"
"A simple conversion."
I frowned. "Are you some kind of religious freak?"
"A freak, no doubt, but not too religious. I'm just suggestive."
Maddening, this man. I could hardly stand his sing-song talk and these endless intimations. I let my irritation come out in my voice.
"Suggestive? Of what?"
"You might not want to believe everything they tell you."
"But I should believe everything you tell me?"
"Not at all," he smiled. "Now you've got it."
"Got what?"
"A peace of the puzzle," he said, and he stood, dropping a few coins at the counter for the waitress.
"You're leaving?" I asked, the eagerness a little too palpable in my voice.
"I shan't go far," he replied merrily. "There's not far to go. See?"
He pointed at a headline on my paper: "NEW COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY MAKES THE GLOBAL VILLAGE A BIT MORE COZY."
"A simple conversion," he said. "I'm reaching out to the world, you see. But I'm just taking One at a time."
The man put on a bowler derby and picked up his umbrella.
I still had no idea what the man had been talking about. But I felt somehow helpless, left wanting, despite my relief to see him go.
"I didn't catch your name," I ventured.
He pulled a card from his vest pocket, and tossed it on the counter.
"Here's my Number," he said. "Call me anytime."
The hat looked a little ridiculous on his powerful brow, the brim casting his already shadowed eyes just a shade darker.
"Be seeing you," he said, with a tip of the hat. I watched him leave, the automatic doors humming as they swung open for him. I looked down at my breakfast, wondering when it had arrived. I poked it. It was already cold.
The fat woman to my right picked herself up, and pulled her coat on. She looked at me.
"Have a lovely day," she said, as she walked away.
I picked up the card from where it lay, sticky with syrup, on the counter. I turned it over, then over again. It was completely blank.


THE END...

(c) John Drake1997

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