Today, I woke up feeling like one of the zombie people in that
movie, "Metropolis." Y'know, they're all slogging off to
the salt mines or whereever it is that they go to under the city.
And they got that look on their faces. Like they've died and they
haven't hit the ground yet.
And I didn't want to go to work. I'm thinking I might quit my job
again. I've quit the diner five or six times. The boss always hires
me back. Dale hires me back because my till always balances. He's
even called me in when I didn't work there to try and figure out
what the other waitresses did.
I'm pretty good with numbers. Always have been. Even had a job
with an accounting firm. It was okay, drinking tea and crunching
numbers.
I forget why I quit that job. I did tho'. Seems like I do just
fine until it dawns on me how totally weird unreal I do is. And I'm
ready to quit again.
Last night, I was working graveyard. Just me and Barn, the cook.
We haven't had a customer since I came on shift. Oh, and Rick was
there. He's there all the time so he doesn't really count.
No one's out though 'cause it's been snowing all night. You look
out the big window and everything's got a yellow glow to it. No
traffic. The snow falls in flakes as big as your first and it's calm
as death out there. The only movement is from the falling flakes. It
makes the street lights look like sparklers.
And then Rick spoke. He doesn't talk all that much. And to have
him pipe up like that when the loudest thing we've been listening to
was the snow falling, well it was like he was shouting.
He said, "I'm going to build a snow fort."
And the door whooshed shut behind him. The bells jingling as he
left. I was sure he'd lost his mind. Rick hates snow. He hates
everything about it. The fact that there's a lot of it just lying
around makes him hate it more. Still, there he is wading into the
parking lot to build a fort.
Now the diner really felt empty. The empty seats, the hollow
feel, Barn & I gapping at each other like a couple of fish. I
grabbed Barn and we went out there.
The snow wasn't any good, just chicken fluff. Not good fort
building matter, but I didn't care. Rick didn't even seem to notice.
God, I felt like a kid again.
Originally the fort would have been the size of a two car garage,
but as construction progressed, it shrank to that of a respectable
igloo and then a dog house.
Drunk Doug was on his way home when he saw the three of us. He
helped until his whiskey ran out.
When it was all done, Rick stood back to admire it. It was then
that I asked him why he'd built it. He said he didn't know. Just
sort of took him. Like romance does sometimes.
But Rick, you hate the snow.
He stood there before his fort, face upturned to the large flakes
dropping down on us. And then he started talking. More than he'd
ever spoke before. In hushed tones. Things I didn't really
understand completely. All these words he'd been saving up for
years, just rushed out of him.
He spoke of some friend of his. A drinking buddy I guess. His
name was Plato. And he had this idea that you didn't see beauty.
Beauty was something that was a part of whatever it was you were
looking at.
He kept on like this, getting more excited with each in take of
air. His voice never rose to a shout.
It ran along these lines. When you see a yellow car, it's not
really yellow. It's every other color in the whole wide, world but
yellow. That one color, yellow it tosses back. And that's why we see
it because the car does not absorb it.
And what that meant was, that when you think something's
beautiful--Like, what a beautiful vase-- It's actually quite ugly.
It reflects beauty back. And only ugly things were truly beautiful.
So, now matter how he hated snow, he had to admit that it was the
most beautiful.
He fell silent, staring at his igloo. And I must admit it was
pretty damn ugly. Yet at the same time, it wasn't.
And I woke up this morning, and I didn't want to go to work. I
want to go and look at ugly things.
