Deathly Life: A Table for One

Chapter One

Table for One

"Life is just a series of meaningless random events culminating into nothing of great importance." The black coffee sloshed about as the boney hands of the man set the cup on the table. He leaned back in the wooden booth as he rested his arms across the top. Coffee droplets on his light brown mustache got scooped up by his tongue.

"How can you even say that? You have personally seen all the shit that's been going on this city recently. You've even caught someone falling out of a seven-story building!" As if he hadn't eaten in weeks, the muscular arms shoveled food into his mouth. The dozen eggs on his plate he ordered were half devoured in thirty seconds. Not even one morsel missed its intended target. He took one big gulp as he swallowed a mouthful.

"I know you think its more than just meaningless coincidences but you just don't want to admit it. That would mean there's a higher power at work or at the very least fate." The large muscular man continued shoveling in food. He looked up between bites to see if the man across from him had any reaction. As usual, he was just staring out the window. At what, Mansk had no idea.

Quillian sat in his gray cloak at the booth behind the thin man, brooding over his own cup of coffee. A cup of coffee he couldn't drink. Over a plate of bacon, sausage and pancakes he couldn't eat. No food, no liquid nor any nourishment of any kind gave him energy. At least he was in a place he didn't have to worry about his problems getting in the way. He pushed his custom-made sunglasses that were fifty times darker than normal further up the bridge of his nose.

He didn't want to admit to himself but he was somewhat happy here, in this deathless town. It made life so much easier. Ha! Life. He missed having a normal life. This was as normal as it got. He picked up his sixth packet of sugar, ripped it in half and let it slowly fall into his cup like sand in an hourglass.

A waitress in black pants and a red shirt with name tag approached the table.

"Is everything okay with your meal sir? You haven't touched any of it." She stood there with a nervous look as she bit her lip.

"Ah, no. Everything is fine. I'm just letting it cool off." Quillian poked at his sausages with his fork as they rolled on the plate.

She glanced at her watch, "But you haven't touched any of it for thirty minutes. "

He sighed and looked up at her. She had a split lip, a black eye, scratches all over her arms and she favored her left leg. Damn city is gonna kill itself with all this unchecked crime.

"I'm sure your food is perfect. I just haven't been feeling like myself this morning. I'm sorry. Don't worry, I'll still pay what I owe." He put his hand gently on her wrist in reassurance. It was nice not having to worry about someone's heart stopping when he did that. He jerked his hand away instinctively.

"Sorry Miss..." He checked out her nametag. "Ashley."

"It's okay. Hope you feel better." She limped back to the counter.

He reached inside his pant pockets to retrieve his wallet when the body of a man crashed through the window next to him landing directly onto his plate of food. With an exasperated sigh, Quillian collapsed back into his seat. The man's face was unrecognizable from the amount of damage done to it. His arms were broken and his lower legs were bent forward. Unfortunately, much like everyone else in this city, he was still breathing even after this atrocity.

Quillian looked up at the waitresses about the place, saw their frightened faces and sighed again. After he slowly closed his eyes and reopened them, he pulled the man up by his bloody collar and shoved him out the broken window. He took money out of his wallet, plopped it on the table and walked out of Jan's Diner into the overcast morning.

Sounds of mayhem and chaos from nearby streets echoed off the towering buildings. Cars crashing were followed by the screams of people were barely audible over the reverberating thuds of gun fire. A baby's cry pierced the intermittent silence of the morning. All of this and it was only seven-thirty.

Quillian thrust he hands into the pockets of his gray coat and headed down the street to his apartment. He crossed the broken glass covered street and his black sneakers splashed into an ever-growing puddle of water from a broken fire hydrant on the other side. The seven-story gray business building loomed over him, almost in an accusatory way. It's two broken windows five stories up stared at him like deep black eye sockets.

"What?!" Quillian flicked his head upward and squinted his eyes. "I didn't ask for this shit! I only tried to help someone. Look where it got me. Here. In this .... This broken shell of a city. I'm sure this city was once thriving. Once full of life. But look at it now! Just leave me alone."

With a hard gulp, he continued his somber march down the street. He kept telling himself it was only three blocks away. It wasn't that far. No one would stop him, threaten him, try to rob him or kill him. He'd be fine.

A faint scream from overhead started getting louder. Without looking up, Quillian took one big step closer to towering building just as the body of a man in a business slammed into the sidewalk next to him. Blood sprayed out from every visible orifice and the bones of the man snapped instantly. Quillian counted to five in his head and the man moaned softly.

He bent down close to disfigured body of the man and whispered, "I'm sorry pal. It really shouldn't be this way." Quillian stuck his hands in the man's pockets, pulled out his wallet, transferred the money into his pockets and tossed the wallet onto the man's back. "But I gotta get some cash somehow. I truly am sorry."

Walking away, Quillian wasn't sure if he was sorry. He had been given, what seemed like, a dead-end. There wasn't much else he could do. Maybe there was another way but he didn't even want to think about it. Besides, he really did need the money. He had to survive himself. He shifted his head back and forth and cracked his neck.

He had made it one block and the only incident that had happened was money falling from the sky. That was a pretty decent start. Maybe this evening might turn out to be mediocre. That was the best evenings ever got around here because if you wanted a high point you'd have to get to a roof top but that usually meant you were soon to find the low point.

Quillians musings became fuzzy and his vision started to blur as dizziness overcame him. Taking two stumbling steps, he planted his hand against a nearby building next to an alley way. He strained to concentrate and focus until he heard a faint rasping coming from the alley. Gritting his teeth and tightening his lips, he thrust himself around the corner between the two buildings.

Hunched down in the shadows of a dumpster was an emaciated ashen skinned man wearing nothing but rags. There was at most ten strands of hair on his ballooned-out head that pulsated. Long boney fingers wiggled and waved in his direction.

"Get out of my head, digger! These are my thoughts! You wouldn't like them anyway!" Quillian picked up a broken piece of pipe nearby and banged it on the dumpster. The nearly skeletal man clamped his ears with his hands and gave off a hideous wail like a donkey braying crossed with fingernails on a chalkboard. Quillian's head cleared and he walked back out to the sidewalk. So much for a mediocre evening.

That was two blocks done and one more block to go. What else could go wrong? He could get stabbed by someone coming up from behind. Maybe even a car slamming him into a building. That would be fun. The possibilities of what normally would be considered lethal were now just annoyances. All he had left to do was wait.

Running footsteps grew louder from behind him as he continued his funeral march towards his residence. Then the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he heard his name called. He let out a long exasperate sigh and looked over his shoulder. He could see two men running up the street after him. The same two men that were in the diner earlier. And, of course, they were shouting for him.

Quillian looked up to the sky and silently mouthed "why?" Without turning around, he just waited until they caught up. When they finally got to him, the thin framed man in the mustache seemed like he had just had a leisurely walk while the other man was a little out of breath.

"Quillian? It is Quillian, isn't it?" Mansk, the muscular man panted.

"I don't know how you know me and I don't know why you'd want to." Quillian just stood there like a statue.

"I saw you're picture in the paper from two towns over. How you saved all those people. And, well, we saw you at the diner and I just had to say how in awe I am of you." The muscular man beamed at him like a love-sick puppy.

"One. How could you even recognize me? Two. That was a different life. That's not who I am anymore. And three. I don't do autographs, I just want to be left alone." He started to turn around.

The thin framed man's voice whispered to Mansk behind his back, "See. I told you he didn't care. He didn't even try to save that guy that fell from that building. It's like I said, meaningless coincidences."

Quillian heard their footsteps get farther away as he continued down the street. The word meaningless repeated over and over again in his head. To Quillian, it was starting to sound more and more like the truth. Nothing was worth not dying or not living in death. Or something like that. Who cares about semantics.

He stopped short and his eyes followed the steps up to the front to his apartment and up to the window of the third floor belonging to his place. Trudging up all the steps and passing the junkies on the stairs whose arms now looked like craters of the moon, he reached his door. A decaying dull brown with a rusted doorknob and bullet holes in the wood. The number seven had once been on there but not for a long time. No one could even tell it had ever been there.

Quillian turned the knob and entered the tornado swept disaster area he called an apartment. He didn't need a key to get in because he never kept it locked. Who would want to steal anything in here? Who could even find anything in here? He walked over to his fridge, kicking and stepping on soda cans along the way.

After peeling a can off his sneaker, he pulled the fridge open and gazed into a cold void. He knew he had nothing in there but he did it anyway in hopes that it might feel normal someday. He closed the fridge again and looked at the dry erase board magnetized on the door. The only thing written on it was a question mark. That was the only thing ever written on it.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he dragged his feet over to his moldy pale green couch and flopped down. His couch looked straight out the window he had just looked up at the street. He had no television in his apartment because he never watched. He didn't even do any reading. He just laid low, walked around the city and slept. At least sleeping was one thing he could still do.

He started out the window for ten minutes then closed his eyes with a deep breath. Letting his head flop to the back of the couch, he removed his dark sunglasses, placed them next to him and dozed off. The sporadic blinking of the sign across the street did not disrupt his slumber. It just blinked with electrical unease "Vida City Hospital."