Unworthy Prayers

He finds himself staring out the window of the restaurant he goes to every week at the same time, on the same night. There is a solid glass wall that overlooks the city, and it takes him a good forty-five minutes to drive up the mountain to get there. It is a nice little reward, he thinks, for suffering through another week of this life.

And everyone needs their rewards.

She smokes a cigarette beyond the restaurant, puffing it down as quickly as possible so she can get back to the running from table to table to make as much in tips as possible. She scrolls the infinite scroll of social media while killing her lungs.

Some rewards are better than others.

And on the other side of the city, within the depths of a retirement communal living quarters, a woman is slipping some extra medication to someone well beyond their expiry date. And the elderly one thanks the woman by telling her a story about something that happened forty years earlier. "I'll be yours for a song," she says as she references the Leonard Cohen song, which is integral to the story as it took place at one of his concerts. She is alluding to some wild sexual adventure that came from it, but all the nurse can think about is how this old woman probably doesn't have any idea what wild sex is.

But humanity has always been kinky. The toys may be new, but everything has been done. The reason witches are known for riding brooms is because women would use brooms as dildos, after all.

The man stares out the window imagining what it would be like to be able to pack up and just leave, travel indefinitely until he landed in a spot that finally felt like home - if such a place even exists at all.

The cigarette is down to the filter, but she tries to suck down the last little bit just in case. She throws the filter to the ground and stomps it out while the last remnants of smoke float up past the sole of her shoe, and then she walks through the propped open back door and rushes past the kitchen staff. "Come the fuck on, Jenny! You damn near made me drop this plate of fries!" one of the staff members shouts before mumbling, "fucking bitch."

"Sorry, James!" she yells back as she hurriedly squeezes through a few other people. One of the men she passes stops cutting the blackened chicken in front of him to stare at her ass.

She notices both, the comment and the man staring at her ass. It doesn't make her feel good in either case, but she also knows it is just a consequence of existing in this world. And the tips are good.

The nurse imagines how she was having a threesome the night before while the old woman is talking about the concert. She can still feel the consequences of the drugs she took before finding herself in bed with two men at the same time. She doesn't regret it - everyone needs things to make their life feel worth it, and she doesn't make fuck all for money to afford the life she wants.

A homeless woman has just finished pawning off some of the things she found in the garbage, and is being filled with excitement that she made enough to get her fix. As she walks to her dealer's spot, she looks around and is filled with so much despair and hopelessness that she can't understand why she continues day in and day out, but she knows that she will be feeling relief soon enough for those atrocious feelings.

The man staring out the window gets his plate of food delivered to his table - much the same way that it is the same location, at the same time, it is the same meal. His daydreaming is broken temporarily enough to say his thanks, smile, and make polite conversation with the server before the server walks off and his mind goes back to fantasizing about what it would be like to be free.

"And then I kiss you and then I'll be gone," a guitarist sings, covering Tom Waits, with his guitar case open on the corner of the street. Passers by throw in spare change, but more often than not, they pass by without even acknowledging his existence. The raspy vocals have the average person give him more of a wide berth, but one woman across the street stands watching him with a tear running down the side of her face as she remembers a time when she listened to the song with her dead husband. They would smoke a bit of the shit weed they could get before it became legal and spin albums for hours on their weekends when they were young. Tom Waits was her personal favorite, and he would comment about he couldn't get past his voice - some people just don't have the depth to appreciate such unique beauty.

"Did you ever care for me? Were you ever there for me? So far from me," Nick Cave bellows out while a man buries his head into his hands, feeling the wet tears pouring out the sides of his palms. The music is entirely too loud, but his neighbors are far enough away to not be bothered - at least he hopes. He is lost in heartache, dying of the internal pain from a love lost from someone who never truly deserved him to begin with. He can't see that, though, at least not yet. He is blind to all the pain and suffering she caused him, but instead is focusing on how much pain and suffering he is left with from her absence.

And the elderly woman is finishing up her story of a lover lost to time, a fleeting moment within a life that will never be lived again. Her mind flitters with life, and her heart floods with love for a memory that will never leave her, even after all the rest have gone. She thanks the nurse with the drugs that will allow her to sleep more soundly, and fill her head with enough dopamine for her to forget she is trapped in the confines of a few rooms of a singular building.

And the man is slipping his card into the black booklet they set on the table with the bill from his meal while finishing his beverage and imagining the drive back down the mountain - the forty five minutes of turns, wondering if everyone would think it an accident if he went careening off the road and down the mountain. He knows he won't do it, he values his car too much for such a thing, but it does pique his interest to know whether anyone would know it to be intentional.

The server is rushing between tables making sure every guest feels welcome and ensuring they feel acknowledged. The tips aren't that great this night, but she also knows that if she slips up even a little bit then they will only get worse. People don't tip well when they don't have tons of extra money, anyway, and she still has several hours left on her shift.

The homeless woman gets back to her make-shift living arrangement and stares at the needle, wondering if she should poke it through her skin or not. She looks out through the alley, smelling the horrendous garbage next to her, with the street light flickering in and out, and knows that - in this moment of clarity - the best days are behind her, and all she has to look forward to are the moments where the high takes over. She ties off, jabs the needle, and says goodnight to the world.

"Did you really love the city, or did you just pretend?" Someone, somewhere hears Leonard Cohen's voice sing out.

-Dustin S. Stover