The Diner

I looked around me, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, dry and swollen. I sat alone, the diner in front of me closed, the sign unlit but shimmering in the falling sun. My wrinkled hands rested on the cracked leather of the wheel. The end of the road, my road, was a shut-down diner and an empty pump of gas. I settled down in the seat with a beat-up paperback written by Schopenhauer to keep me company. I barked out a laugh. It was going to be a cheery end of the road with him at my side.