Mismatched

Belle Star's diner is mismatched. She has mismatched tables, mismatched chairs. Mismatched plates and mismatched cutlery.

I was washing a butter knife today, and I couldn't stop staring at it. Belle caught me transfixed, and started harassing me. I did not want any attention today. Today I just wanted to be scenery.

"Fallin' for that knife, Jimenez, you f**kstick?"

It was a beautiful knife, and yes, I had fallen for it. I stuck it in my pocket, right in front of her.

"You didn't!" she said.

"I did!" I said, and I walked out the door.

I walked and walked. I took out my knife from time to time and pretended it was a light-saber. I pretended it was a magic wand. I pulled it out and mimicked spreading butter onto toast, or an English muffin. I thought of the butters that knife had encountered through the years. Of the not-butters that no reasonable person would ever mistake for real butters. I thought of truth, and lies. Lies, and damned lies.

I thought about freedom. I thought about lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about freedom. I thought about that moment when it finally came--when my time was finally served--when I was free and didn't know what I should feel. When at varying moments it felt better than I ever could have imagined--and then like nothing at all--and then like the world of possibilities that now awaited me was so vast and overwhelming that I would have no choice but to be swallowed up by it all.

I thought about how one chapter ends, and then another chapter begins. In a book, when you are reading it it's movement can shock you and amaze you, and when you are not reading it, it is just a book. I thought about that.

I wondered if Curt Jimenez and Belle Star's diner were just mismatched from the start.

What next?