The café gave off a veneer of friendliness. He had probably passed it a hundred times in his journeys back and forth across the continent, but this was the first time he had actually stopped. A salient flag had caught his eye as he turned around the bend a quarter of a mile back, cascading down the remainder of the hill with his foot perched above the brakes on his big rig. As he came into close proximity of the diner he jammed the wavering foot down on the brake pad. The cab came to a halt after one quick lunge and a final jerk, not twenty feet from the café´s front door. He stepped down off the sideboard and glanced around him, taking in the musty Colorado air. He now noticed what had originally caught his eye, that the flag was an American flag, but something about it just wasn´t quite right. The flag seemed restrained in some perverse way, bound with fetters of brass. Unable to put his finger on it he stepped into the café, taking a seat at the table right inside the front door. Something about the inside of this place made him more uneasy than he already felt.

The tables were all in the shape of acute triangles. He only knew this because acute triangles were always his favorite in grade school. He used to tell his teachers “that triangle´s acute,“ and then snicker to himself as he sat back down. When his laughter would subside he´d look back around the room at the blank faces and shout “don´t you get it! That triangle´s acute, just like Molly over there,“ which would cause him to go into even further bouts of giggling, as Molly really wasn´t all that cute. No one ever really understood him.

He ordered a coffee and a piece of lemon meringue pie, feeling the stares of those around him. He couldn´t hear anything from his fellow patrons, not even a cough or intake of breath. They were all expecting something, and he couldn´t tell if it was him that they were waiting on. The waitress dropped his coffee and pie off and promptly disappeared back into the kitchen before he could ask for some sugar. He saw some sitting on the table next to his, a table filled with a family of four, and he asked “Mind if I steal that sugar there, son,“ to the young lad sitting closest to him. No one moved, he couldn´t even tell if the family was breathing as the boy just stared at him. Finally feeling the pressure of the whole event weighing down on him he grabbed the sugar of the table, not caring if he looked like a mooch or not. That was when he heard the first noise in the café that did not originate with him.

A loud screeching filled the café, the sounds of brakes giving out as asphalt is torn apart. He turned just in time to see his big rig split down the middle around a massive tree on the opposite side of the road, breaking in half at first and then just seeming to disintegrate into nothing before his very eyes. He turned back to the boy, who now had a tear in his eye and opened his mouth for the first time.

“Sit down and finish your coffee and pie, mister. Before they get cold,“ was all the boy said.