CD 2021 - Cafe Delirium theme, entry. --non.writer--

Non-"writer" status entry (I guess, LOL). Anyway, on to the story

------------------------- PART 1 --------------------------------------

It had been a long day driving in the rain and sporadic traffic, Walker’s eyes were struggling to see the GPS in the dim conditions. It was only another seventy five to a hundred miles or so to Black Forest he thought, they should just push on and get the long drive over with. Walker was constantly now having to snap himself out of falling into a trance with the rhythm of the windshield wipers; it had been fourteen nonstop hours of nothing but driving rain.
“Walker, honey, we should probably stop and take a break for a while, maybe get something to eat.”, his wife said, “Why don’t we just pull off somewhere? We’re both tired, and I really think you need a break there,boss. Plus, I’m pretty hungry; we haven’t eaten all day!”

Walker silently contemplated Abi’s request, she probably knew him better than he knew himself. Besides, a bite to eat and maybe an ice cold beer actually sounded pretty good right about then; anything was better than staring at those windshield wipers slapping endlessly back and forth.
“You know, Abigale Hastings, you may just have a point! I’m pretty sick of this and a change of scenery for a while would be really nice. I’d rather look at you for a while than the monsters my mind keeps conjuring up directly in front of us in this infernal rain! That, and the windshield wipers are about ready to make me lose my mind. Whatcha’ got in mind?”

“I don’t know; why don’t we just wing it?”, Abi said. “Just pull off on one of these exits and we’ll see what we can find. There’s gotta’ be something around here.”

At the bottom of the freeway ramp there was a stoplight, and by the time the light turned green the rain had already started to let up. A short ways later there was a sign, ‘Plumville 3 miles’. So it was Plumville or bust, Walker thought to himself. “How about, ummm, Plumville!!?”, he said, as if a divine message had just been given to him. Abi just giggled a little and shook her head.

Sure seemed like a long three miles to this Plumville town, wherever that was, but the good news was the rain had almost completely cleared and it looked like the sun might even be trying to poke out from behind the clouds. Despite all the exits, and traffic, and rain on the freeway, this road seemed like just a rural state road in the country side. Definitely a welcome break from the intensity driving on the freeway.

Plumville wasn’t much to look at. Walker imagined if he sped up and blinked his eyes he might drive right through it without even noticing. Plumville looked like probably hundreds of other farming communities, all the usual suspects; a market, a couple gas stations, a bar and a burger joint. Wait!...A burger joint??, he thought. “How about that place, Ab’s?”

“What, that place???”, she said, pointing. “Did you happen to see the name?? It says ‘Grub’s’! I’m not eating at a place called Grub’s!!”

“I’ve really got my heart set on a burger and beer now”, he announced, “…now that you’ve got me all motivated about food, Ms. Hastings.”

“Alright, but if there’s any banjo music playing in this joint, or any other weird s##t goin’ on, we’re outta’ there, got it, Mr. Hastings??? Plus, next thing I know you’ll be askin’ me what pronoun I wish to be addressed by, right?”, she said, shaking her head. So Grub’s burger joint in Plumville, BFE was the choice du jour, and Walker pulled up and parked.

As they walked down the sidewalk to Grubs, Abi saw a flash out of the corner of her eye. It was some kind of a shop across the street and down a few doors. Once inside the burger joint, Abi looked around and it actually seemed like a cozy and clean place, much to her surprise. Their burgers turned out to be worthy of writing home about, and the beer was ice cold just as Walker had hoped. When the waitress brought their check over, Abi asked about the shop down the street. “Oh, it’s just a little local gift shop; they have all kinds of neat stuff.”, the waitress replied. “If you’ve got a few minutes you should go check it out.”

By the time Walker and Abi were back outside the sky had cleared and the blistering summer sun had returned. Between the dark driving conditions in the rain, and the dim lighting inside the restaurant Walker squinted and shielded his eyes to see. “Man! It’s bright out here! Do we really have to go check out this gift shop?? I’d kind of like to get back on the road.” Walker knew the decision had already been made, and they were going to the giftshop first, no ifs, ands or buts. He pulled out a smoke and lit it as they walked. He figured Abi wouldn’t be inside but a minute and he’d just stand outside and finish his smoke. They reached the shop and Abi went inside. Several minutes went by and she was still inside. What the heck is keeping that woman?, he thought to himself, shaking his head and crushing out his smoke. He resigned himself to go in and find out what she was up to.

Inside the giftshop, Walker immediately noticed it was jammed full of all manner of things, and there, all the way in the back, was Abi, deeply immersed in a conversation with the owner about some trinket or other. Go figure, he thought to himself. Now he was going to have to spend a half an hour dragging her butt out of there! But, he mused, it was, after all, a pretty nice ‘butt’ to be having to drag out of a place! He’d definitely dragged worse.

As he made his way to Abi, Walker was taken back by the sheer quantity and variety of crazy stuff in the store. He’d looked when he’d walked in, but the sign on the front was too faded to read clearly. What was the name of this place anyway? As he walked by the cash register there was a business card holder on the counter. He grabbed a card. What an odd name, he thought. On the card, printed in Olde English text, were the words…”Café Delirium”.

--------------To Be Continued---------------

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Keep writing,

great intro. Left me hanging there.

Kind regards,

Bally

--------------- PART 2 -------------------------

Abi, being a nut about curio items and odd things, was in her own world inside Café Delirium. Walker feared he’d never be able to extract her out of the place. There were probably a hundred thousand items to ask questions about, and Abi was probably on about item #11. Worse, her little hand basket was nearly half full already.

“Alright, what are you two hens cluckin’ about back here?”, Walker asked. “Holy Cow, Ab’s, at the rate you’re goin’ we’re gonna’ need a pickup!”
“Oh Shush!”, she said, poking him in the ribs with her elbow. “Why don’t you go up front; they had some old guns, and tools and stuff up there you’d probably be interested in!", she told him as she rolled her eyes at the proprietor. "Men!", she said to to the elderly woman, grinning; then she turned back to Walker and said "Hey, look at this, my Grandmother had one of these, she gave it to me when I was a little girl, but I’ve long since misplaced it. And then there’s this cameo; all my life I wanted one of these, but I never got one”.

She had a point, Walker thought, there was a whole BUNCH of stuff in this place, to be sure. Just stuff, piled upon stuff; a person could spend a year in this place and not even get halfway through it all. As he meandered his way to the front again, he couldn’t help but notice item after item which piqued his interest. Things which reminded him of people, places and things he’d done and seen during his life. He tried not to look at every item and stay focused on going to look at the old firearms, something he was keenly interested in, but the pull of some of the other items was just too great. Some items reminded him of the past, others of things he still wanted to do, yet others still of things which might have been. Missed opportunities, goals, memories, good times and bad…the tiny shop was endless.

Soon Walker became so engrossed and clouded by the sheer volume of thoughts and images going through his mind he had to remind himself to watch where he was walking so he didn’t knock something over. His mind was racing. What was this place?

Café Delirium was an old building, likely built around the turn of the 19th century, Walker guessed. 1880’s vintage likely, its floors made of old wooden boards, now painted. There were even hints of nostalgia contained in the smells inside the shop. In fact, every thing he touched or saw, or smelled, made him think of something. He was lost in his own thoughts. He glanced back, secretly hoping Abi was as deeply engaged as he was; this was going to take some time.

At one point Walker noticed the building shuddered a little and the floors and walls creaked. He looked up and noticed the wind had picked up outside. Just then a cloud of dust blew by, and a particularly strong gust even kicked up some dirt off the floor from under the door. He thought to himself how he loved old buildings and places that time forgot. Café Delirium was just such a place.

Abi’s laughing and wonderous exclamations from the back of the shop snapped him momentarily from his daze. She was now gob smacked by yet another find. It was then that he saw it; it was just a simple charcoal drawing of a man in uniform, but it wasn’t just any man, he looked identical to Walker’s great-great Grandfather, his namesake, who had fought and died in the Civil War. But it couldn’t have been, how could something like that have ever wound up in this shop in the middle of nowhere? Then, he noticed something else; it was a futuristic picture a young boy who looked strikingly like Walker did as a boy, and next to the boy was an unmistakable pet dog who had belonged to his uncle who had been a dustbowl farmer during the Great Depression. None of this could be true, it just couldn’t be. And then there was Abi, he and Abi had met three years before and prior to that neither had known the other existed before that meeting. Yet Abi seemed to be having the same sorts of revelations he was having, though both of their families had lived in two completely different worlds. How could this be?

--------------- To Be Continued --------------

---------------- PART 3 - Epilogue ---------------

It wasn’t long before it grew dusk outside. Both Walker and Abi had completely lost track of time; both of them had all but forgotten about their journey to Black Forest and Abi’s family’s small reunion . Walker looked down at his wrist and saw nothing. He instinctively clutched his wrist and looked quickly around, his watch was missing. The band must have come loose and it had fallen off. Walker’s mind was spinning. This place, Café Delirium, was living up to its name.

Abi was now walking toward him, but somehow she looked different as she drew near. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but somehow Abi looked older. He was still absentmindedly clutching his wrist where his now missing watch had been. He felt like he was frozen in time. He wanted to tell her about his watch, but for some reason the words just didn’t come out. The shop had grown quiet now, and Walker pivoted to look in an old antique mirror he’d passed a moment ago. Instead of seeing his reflection, Walker only saw what looked like a shimmering pool of silver liquid, and his vision started to narrow. He turned to look out the front windows of the shop only to find they looked the same as the mirror had, just shimmering pools of now darkness with nothing beyond them. His mind was reeling with images of both the future and the past all melded into one. Every memory, thought, hope and dream was converging into one. Somehow, he felt at peace for the first time in his life.

As the sun rose the next morning, a pink slip of paper tucked under the windshield wiper of Walker’s BMW fluttered gently in the morning breeze, a Parking Violation. Not long afterwards a tow truck arrived and towed the car away. There was no fanfare, just another quiet morning. Just after seven o’clock that morning old man Grub heard the familiar jingling of the little bells over the door across the street at Café Delirium as the door gently closed signaling they were once again open for another day’s business. Just then a short gust of wind blew a small cloud of dust down the street as it always seemed to do around this same time each morning.

------------------THE END-----------------------

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk


Very Twilight Zone ending.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I agree about the Twilight Zone ending. Good story!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That was great. Strong imagery, characters, perfect ending. Like watching a film.

Lets make it a Trifecta with this train of thought... Yep, very Twilight-Zone-ish.

...and me like Twilight Zone.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That was entertaining

See at first I was thinking of the book needful things by king but then yes, I’m echoing it turned into twilight zone feels.

Nice writing

Erm...

I loved your story! And btw...wonderful use of Cafe Delirium 👍🏻

Thanks all!

As I sat and thought about the theme it occurred to me that 'delirium' was of the mind overwhelmed by thought, and a 'cafe' was a place to eat or drink something, so the natural conclusion for me was the notion of "feeding the mind to the point of overload and/or destruction, and/or a different plane of existence." Rather than define this destruction or higher plane of existence, I left it up to the reader to decide based on their feelings and emotions brought about by the storyline up to that point, hence the twilight zone-ish ending (though that wasn't really an intentional homage).

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The question kept occurring, "How did all these things end up here?"

Then at the end it was like "Oh, that's how."

originally posted by: jensouth31
I loved your story! And btw...wonderful use of Cafe Delirium 👍🏻

Well, Thank You!

Coming from you, that is quite the compliment given that you are the originator of the theme! (sorry for the delay, I didn't make that connection until just now).

I hope I did it justice.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Please finish! This is very ironic to me. I ran a cafe in a blip of a town named...Plumervile, BFE....lol and had a gift shop in back that also had antique booths in it. Please take me through Part 2........You write very well BTW

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
You did a wonderful job!