Sattire Attire part III: deserting dessert

‘I want to break free from your lies, you’re so satisfied I don’t need you. I want to break free’ Queen – I want to break free

And so it happened. All that had to happen eventually: A modern-life altering event. They had walked not too distant from each other for only a short distance and he was trying to keep pace and catch up. He never did. She was always ahead of him and still gaining speed. It was as if she was luring him into a never ending false hope. Like holding candy over a child’s head and then whisking it away when the child jumps at it.

He cursed himself in his own head and the hat kept remitting the ill-feeling back. He cursed Dmitri when he was in his company; cursed him for not keeping his vigilance intact for him.

Though Dmitri knew better than to take those offhand words to heart, he’d been in a similar position before. He’d seen it all before and he’d heard it all before.

“That damned diner is cursed” said he who’d been smitten with ill-fate. They both knew that it was he himself who was cursed. It was he himself who’d always fallen for a trap.

“You make a dash for the mirage” said Dmitri, “when you should stay on course”.

“A mirage?” inquired he.

“Yes, my friend, a mirage. A sense of infinite hope though be it only false. Like a piece of glass likened to a diamond in a stash of coal. And when you reach for it, it inflicts upon you a gash. You bleed due to your own greed.”

She had walked away from him. And he had walked to her. She had vanished like a mirage, like hope that was artificial. And she had left him in a desert after pulling him off course. Was he to blame himself or was he to blame her? He had to break free from her trap. He blamed himself. He had to break free...

“I’m hungry, let’s go to that diner” he said finally.

“That damned diner?” Dmitri mocked.

Not yielding any attention to that bit of rhetoric, courtesy another ill-fated mirage, our hero responded “Yes that damned diner. That’s the one. And today’s special will be special, I can feel it”. His eyes transfixed. "Yes, I can feel it... that's the one, I can feel it..."

“I’m sure of it. Do you feel stupidity?” Dmitri read the situation as accurately as an open book.

“..I can feel it!” His eyes, mind and heart transfixed on the oasis. He had broken free from her. He had not, though, from the cycle which governed his shame. Deep inside he knew that he should know better. But he could feel it. He failed to see, though, that in the entire universe it as only he himself that could feel it. Only him.

When they entered the diner, the sign read "Today's Special: Fool's Hope". Dmitri read it, our hero on the other hand was trying to fathom something else.

"Today's special for me" ordered he.

"One too many you've had" said Dmitri, "Just coffee for me. I'll watch him eat and then complain. Thank you."