Embers of Discontent

It was too early for the drunks and too late for the breakfast crowd.

Seraphine wiped down the same spot on the counter for the third time, not because it was dirty, but because she needed something to do that didn’t involve staring at the door and hoping someone worthwhile would walk through it.

The diner buzzed under the tired flicker of neon light. “OPEN,” the sign insisted stubbornly to the empty street, like a lie told too many times. The coffee machine hissed with more spirit than any of the patrons who’d passed through lately.

She leaned on the counter, flipping through the battered notepad where she scribbled the day’s specials. There was only one item: "Don’t Ask, Just Eat." She’d written it as a joke two weeks ago, and no one had complained. Probably because no one had noticed.

The bell above the door jingled.

Seraphine looked up without much expectation, and her eyebrow rose by half an inch. A man walked in, lean and wiry, dressed like someone trying too hard not to be noticed—which, in this part of town, meant he stuck out like a politician in a protest.

He took a booth near the back, slid into it like he belonged to the shadows there, and glanced at the menu taped to the wall.

"You’re here for food, or just hiding from someone?" Seraphine asked, grabbing a mug and walking over with the easy confidence of someone who’d seen every kind of secret and knew better than to ask twice.

"Bit of both," the man said, voice soft but tinged with exhaustion. "Coffee?"

She poured him a cup. "Black like your sins?"

"Something like that."

He took the cup, but didn’t drink. Instead, he looked at her with that half-curious, half-hunted gaze—like someone waiting for a punchline he couldn’t see coming.

"You don’t ask names, do you?" he said.

"I don’t ask dumb questions either," she replied, then softened. "But I’ll take a guess. You’re the kind that reads the newspaper upside down so the headlines don’t punch too hard."

He chuckled. It was tired, but it was real. "Close enough."

She liked that laugh. Didn’t mean anything, of course. Wouldn’t lead anywhere. But the diner was quiet and so was he, and sometimes two silences got along better than a conversation.

"You know," he said after a moment, "I used to come here when I was a kid. Sat right in that booth with my dad. He used to say this place was ‘neutral ground.’"

Seraphine raised an eyebrow. "This your big return to the homeland, then?"

He smiled, and this time it reached the eyes. Barely. "Something like that. Or maybe I just needed coffee that doesn’t taste like regret."

She slid him a slice of pie—peach, homemade, crumbling at the edges like it had something to confess.

"On the house," she said.

"Why?"

"Because you’re either going to change something important, or get killed trying. Either way, might as well have pie."

He looked at her again, like maybe he’d misjudged the whole place. Then he dug in.

For a while, they didn’t talk. The only sound was the slow clink of fork against plate and the occasional cough from the coffee machine like it was about to give up on life.

She leaned against the counter again, watching the rain tap against the window like a nosy neighbor.

"You know what the city needs?" she asked idly.

"Enlighten me."

"Better pie. And a better ending. Or at least a plot twist that doesn’t involve getting stabbed in the back."

He smiled again, but didn’t argue.

Before he left, he placed a folded note beneath the coffee cup. She didn’t reach for it until he was gone.

It read:

“If things go bad, remember the back alley door. It’s still unwatched.”

She stared at the handwriting for a moment, then slipped the note into her apron and went back to wiping down the counter, her mind already racing somewhere else entirely.

Outside, the rain picked up.

And somewhere far away, the city held its breath.