Mickey's Diner. by Andrew S Adams The city looms gigantic in the distance, as Maribelle places an empty cigarette holder to her mouth; lost remnants of the glitz and glamour she has always aspired to, but could never embody. the skyline is a spectacle, and though at this distance the city is a flawless diamond rising brilliantly from the ground, as soon as you step foot on its cracked roads and piss-stained sidewalks, you get the sense that This city, like Maribelle, strives for some faded glory that is only a distant memory whose origin may or may not even be based in any kind of reality. She drags slow.
"To Dreams," she says, toasting the city without a glass to raise, "and new promise.". the Skyline stares back at her, dressed in what remains of it's Sunday best. These years have not been kind to either of them, but somewhere, she hopes.
Anything you can say about Saint Paul is more or less represented in a run-down train car diner called Mickey's. It's an old rail car that someone decided to plop down smack in the middle of a bustling metropolitan area. The food is cheap, the decor dingy, and the clientèle all very decidedly blue collar. Its exterior is a sea-foam colored art deco nightmare; the way the paint has faded explains the grandiose twenties, the depressed thirties, the war-torn forties, and onward. Every cultural and climate change that's occurred since it was built is somehow recorded in that exact shade of faded green- the line-cooks look like skeletons. Skeletons that will take no guff whatsoever from anyone. Skeletons that will spit in your food if you dare to mention their bones.
So goes that diner, goes Saint Paul.
It will live on forever; every microscopic change recorded on the city walls; and while she walks these streets, she aims to crack the facade. To break what is broken. to reveal the golden heart underneath the dinge;
To Create new promise.
She drags slow. 08/28/2007 Author's Note: a different form for me.
Posted on 08/29/2007 Copyright © 2024 Andrew S Adams
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