Ezoic
The light was still on.
Elmer was sitting on his stool behind the counter. His crossword book was open. He wasn’t doing it. He was just looking at it.
He looked up when the bell jingled.
“Can’t sleep?” he said.
“No.”
“Me neither. Never can, after.”
He reached under the counter. He pulled out a second stool. He set it down next to his.
“Sit,” he said.
I went around the counter and sat.
He poured me a cup of coffee from an old Mr. Coffee machine on the back shelf. It was terrible. Burnt and bitter. I drank it anyway.
“Is she asleep?” I asked.
“Like a baby,” Elmer said. “She always sleeps good after. Like she finished something.”
We sat there for a while.
Ezoic
The vending machine hummed outside. The moths had given up on the office door.
Ezoic
“Your husband,” Elmer said. “He looked like he’d seen a ghost back there.”
