Bathroom Monologue: Welcome to Modernity

He abandoned his grilled cheese and slid up to her booth. Her coffee-colored eyes poured over her French fries, refusing to come up at him even when he sat opposite her. He arched his back to make more of a noise against the cushion. When she continued to ignore his presence, he whispered.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

“Good,” she said, stirring her ketchup with a fry. “But what is it you won’t tell?”

He leaned until his sour breath blew across her plate.

“I saw you glowing.”

Her fingers retreated from his breath, lying instead under the table on her lap. She directed her voice to them even when she spoke at him. “No, you didn’t.”

“Right as you materialized.”

“You didn’t because people don’t glow.”

He pointed an index finger over his shoulder, accusing everyone else in the restaurant without seeing who was there.

“These people don’t, because they’re nobodies like me.”

Her nostrils prickled and she looked at him for the first time. Her coffee eyes simmered. “Are you saying I’m, like, pregnant-glowing?”

“Like phosphorescent-glowing. Only, not now. You’ve got it under control.”

She rubbed at her temples. “This is the second lamest come-on I’ve heard today.”

“Was the worst from a supervillain?”

“Can you go before I call the manager?”

He put his palms to his chest, fingers splaying unflatteringly against the loose cotton and his man-boobs.

“I’m here to help you. That’s my reason for being.”

She brought up her index and middle fingers, then added her ring finger.

“Third worst come-on.”

When he didn’t press it, she didn’t call for the manager. She popped a fry instead. Only once she started chewing and couldn’t talk did he try to drop the truth on her again.

“It isn’t like this for you, you can’t know this, but my whole life has sucked. Been hollow. Breezed by.”

“Everybody feels like that. Welcome to modernity.”

“Nothing’s felt like it even really happened until I saw you.”

“Alright. Welcome to Aderol.”

He turned to point more intensely to the dozens huddled into Modernity. They ate colorful foods from unique plates, no two dressed alike, a flood of accents – and yet he couldn’t describe one of them. They might as well have all been grey. He barely had the strength of mind to look directly at them.

“It’s because, like all the other people in this joint, I’m just a minor character living out a couple paragraphs of backstory. My existence is rushed. We were made for you.”

“Don’t be savage.” She threw down her fries. God help him, but their impact made more important noise than the entire restaurant combined. “You’re a little cute. If you showered more, maybe quit shopping at K-Mart, you’d have much better luck with girls. For God’s sake, though, don’t do this ever again. You’re trying too hard.”

He snapped his fingers, then shook them at her. “I hate showering. I bet that was in my backstory, to set up your joke just then. You see? That’s how this works for a clever main character. So what are you? An alien? A superhero? Hogwartz girl?”

“You missed the ‘trying too hard’ part, didn’t you?”

The city outside tried too hard. Flames bit into the smoggy night sky, basking the skyline in orange. The flash was so sudden even the explosion didn’t hit for another moment. It rocked him to the edge of his booth.

The restaurant patrons screamed, fleeing to the windows for a better look at the burning buildings. Their fear filled his ears, almost three hundred and sixty degrees of gawker noise. But not from her direction.

He scooted around in the booth. Her side was empty. The plate of fries sat plaintive and unfinished. There was no sign of her anywhere in the joint, except perhaps the faint gold glow of someone disappearing by the restrooms.

“I knew it!” he yelled, not that anyone heard him over their own screaming. Not that it mattered what he did, either. He was just a minor character. He remained a minor character for one and a half minutes, until he produced his wallet to pay for her fries. That night he graduated to a supporting role.