The Diner.

The phone rang. Its discordant chime, like a klaxoning of a thousand metallic bells, cut through the muffled din of a restless kitchen and chattering patrons. Things came back into focus. First, the coffee cup and the cheap, black brew that steamed within its thick porcelain walls. Then, the table and its retinue of unused sugar, creamer and napkins. Lastly, flooding in from the edges of his vision the greater expanse of the diner. The checkered linoleum floor. Tables. Chairs. The fraternity of immortals dining across the room. The neon light hanging in the window, a second suspended against the wall besides the entrance. 

He considered both lights and pondered the reason for their existence. They had always irked him. The glowing tubes. The garish fluorescence. The constant hum of the dull electric current. He never understood why they bothered him so, but now, as he looked at them, the reason seemed rather clear. Much like himself, there was no point to their existence. They offered now service. They added no value. They were purely cosmetic.

There was nothing outside the diner. No world, or thoroughfare. No highway, or travellers. Beyond the windows there was nothing but the milky fog of eternity. The white light. Or as they’d come to call it - the all-white. The view never changed. Through all the ages - and there had been many - there was only the unchanging all-white. He could look past the superfluity of the light in the window, after all, it was the obligatory neon beacon which all diners possess, but it was the welcome sign by the front door which really cut through him. He followed the cursive letters as they spelled Purr’s Diner, and grit his teeth at the smirk behind each glowing word. The thing was: nobody, and nothing, walked through the front door. Ever. No one emerged from the all-white, and no one just walked into the diner. Never. Because there was nothing in the all-white. It was oblivion. It was the beginning of all things, and the end. Positive and negative. The no man’s land between existence and annihilation. The trench where time was unmade and reforged. Nothing moved in the all-white, and nothing sure as hell made a trip to Purr’s Diner when the moment piqued them. Yet, the welcome sign challenged that, like a hideous, cosmic joke. Despite the impossibility, as long as it hung against the wall, it teased the possibility of a walk-in. It extended the invite. It perpetuated the masquerade. And he despised it for that. 

The phone rang again, its blaring protest ripping his attention from the neon sign. No one but him could hear it. That’s how it worked. That’s how it always worked. Only the intended could hear the clamouring ring. He moved his eyes across the diner, just to be sure. The kitchen staff, the other patrons, they all continued as normal, oblivious to the ringing. It rang again, and he returned his eyes to where it was ensconced on the wall. With each ring it seemed to drill through his skull, it filled his ears with a viscous drone, and with each repeating rattle his surroundings shuddered with a blurring recoil. This time, he refused to pick it up. This time, he refused to answer it. The ringing wailed, and he resisted. Sweat creeped out from the swathe of black hair on his head. His skin turned clammy. His belly full of coffee turned. This time, he wasn’t going to answer. 

“That’s for you, you know,” Adriany said softly. 

They were all used to the man’s habit of unexpected appearances, and yet he still managed to startle. “I’m not going to answer it,” he declared, turning to face the bald man who suddenly sat across from him.  

“It won’t stop. That’s how it works,” Adriany answered. His tone was gentle, covered with the dust of sleeping aeons. He was always the same. Each time. Every conversation. An immaculate white suit, smooth caramel skin and burnt hazelnut eyes. He was of no nation. From no loin or womb. He simply was. The amalgamation of existence.

“I’m not picking it up,” he reaffirmed. “Not this time.” 

“That’s not how this goes,” Adriany whispered. “You know that.” 

“Why should I go back? What’s the point? What’s the point of all of this?” 

Adriany remained motionless, but his presence leaned forward, imposed itself, and somewhere, in the cosmos, and age breathed its last breath. “The phone beckons. And the intended answers. That has always been the way.” 

“And for what? So I can return to the world as some lousy ceramics teacher? Learn how to mingle? Learn how to dance? Rejoin a failing society that does everything but feels nothing? Its arms are even too tired to open the door for its own demise. I’m tired of it, Adriany. For how many more epochs do we need to do this shuffle? I’ve worn the wristband, I’ve been to the theme park, and I’ve been on all the rides. I’m not doing it again.”

The phone rang, and the both looked at it. 

“You know its not up to us,” Adriany said. There was no force or resignation behind his words, just the flatline of time eternal. 

“So, what? What’s my assignment this time? Last time I was the outcast of a knitting circle, a recluse who ate old sandwiches out of her bag because she was to afraid to look at her own reflection in the kitchen knife.” 

“We’re not sent to change the world, nor are we sent to save it,” Adriany answered. Another millennia passed with the slow opening and closing of his eyes. “We’re just things with feathers, sent to be delicate flowers. The stage calls, the curtain closes and we play our part. Only the man on the line knows the purpose.” 

The phone called again, its metallic song echoing beneath its black shell. “I don’t want to go back,” he said. He could feel the brightness of life fill his body with the thought of his return. There was the flourishing electricity as it flowed through his tissue. The sun. The passing moon. The comedy and tragedy. The blistering passion and the minuscule organisms and bacteria that would come to call his body home. He would thrive, in whatever way the man on the line destined, and so would the empire of microbes. He would become part of the universe, and he himself would become one of his own. But there would be the darkness too. The sadness. The slow decay. The dwindling of the electricity, and the passing of the light, and as the things which made him himself faded, the little things would continue on. And so would the universe. He was immortal, but impermanent. A little wonder for those who wished to exist.

Tears gathered at the lip of his eyes, and Adriany watched one fall like a crystal speck. “It’s for you,” he said, a knowing smile touching his face.

The phone rang.