It’s three in the afternoon. The restaurant is well lighted and immaculate, and sparse of patrons. A tune hums just above the low rumble of indiscernible chattering, clinking, and crashing. The blonde hostess waits at her station by the front door, staring blankly at nothing with her head resting in her palm and her elbow propped on the station.

The suit-and-tie clad manager strides from table to table. “And how are you today, sir? Can I get you anything?”

The old patron raises his empty blue mug. “More coffee, please.”

The manager hooks the waiter with a glare and reels him in with a nod. “Coming right up, sir.”

A glass breaks in the kitchen. The plate slipped out of the busboy’s hand and crashed at his feet.

The patron at the bar peeks over the top of the newspaper clutched in his hands. He sees the fat waitress hurrying into the kitchen beyond the black double doors.

The bartender nods toward the patron at the bar. “Another drink, sir?”

The patron shakes his head and returns to the newspaper.

There are two patrons sitting in a corner booth under a ceiling fan. Their arms are resting in the same manner on the red tiled tabletop, folded and supporting their leaning frames. They sit apart at different angles of the booth and share the same gaze over the circular arrangement of tables on the main floor beyond the gold railing at its edge.

The woman’s eyelids are low, her lips form a natural sort of pout. She seems preoccupied with her thoughts and her voice is tired but it’s quite attractive to the man. His face suggests he’s amused. Though not kin, they have similar features like their eyes, and eyebrows, and small mouths.

The woman stirs her glass of tea. “I don’t mind very much. I just wish someone would’ve told me before so I could’ve had time for another.”

“You’d like their Spanish omelet.” The man browses through the four-page menu. He makes a mental note of the items with the most cheese. “An omelet sounds good. I think I’ll have one.”

“Then the package was returned yesterday and I didn’t know what to make of it.” The woman empties a packet of sugar into her tea and noisily continues to stir. “He said it would go through. He told me it would.”

“A four-egg omelet with cheddar cheese, bacon, onions, and...” The man rubs his eyes with his forefingers and replaces his glasses. “...chicken. Fried chicken? Pepper chicken. Sounds good.”

He glances over at the woman, who’s preoccupied with her cup of tea. He notices the smoothness of her bare arms and how thin they are. She has a small dark mole on the top of her left wrist. How perfect, he thinks.

“Sometimes I wonder.” The woman sips her tea slowly. So as not to burn her mouth on the second sip, she blows into the cup. “Sometimes I really wonder.”

The woman gazes over the rim of her cup at the patron sitting alone just beyond the gold railing. He’s much older than the man beside her who is much younger than she is. And they’re all quite young together.

The patron sitting alone next to the gold railing has his hands neatly folded on the tabletop with a small stack of papers beneath. There is a glass of ice water that’s remained untouched since it was served to him and is damp and dripping, and the drips are collecting into a pool around the bottom of the glass. He observes this.

The suit-and-tie clad manager approaches the patron with a false smile. He stands opposite the patron and extends a hand. They shake hands, share greetings. The patron hands the documents to the manager.

The manager briefly examines the papers. “I see. Uh-huh. Good, good, good.”

The patron nervously rubs his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“Well, I like what I see, sir.” The manager draws his gaze away from the documents and looks the patron in the eyes. “But we’re looking for someone with more experience. I’m afraid we just don’t have any suitable positions available right now.”

The patron nods. A dog slithers past.

“I’ll hang on to this.” The manager extends his hand. “I’ll give you a call if we have any new openings. You could try again in two months if you’d like. If you’re still looking, that is.”

They shake hands once more before the manager strides to the next table, to the man and woman in the corner booth.

The patron bites his bottom lip and climbs from the chair.

The bartender turns the volume up on the television behind the bar. The home team is winning. The patron sitting at the bar folds up the newspaper and fixes his attention to the television screen.

The fat waitress hurries past the manager. “Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

Back to the old grind, huh? Not a bad offering. The description was great a lot of the thoughts and dialog made me think. There is a lot more here than was explained.

You might consider tightening the first paragraph, especially the first sentence.

Sounds to me like you are venting flustration here more than writing a story. That's ok though. I assume this is about you out looking for work. Good luck Bad Day.

tom

First, let me say I love your use of language and description. There's not much of a plot here, but if you meant it as a bit of descriptive writing to get you going, it's very good. I won't comment further until you say what it is you were aiming for.

Gayla

I’ve been applying for various jobs, lately especially at restaurants. And, aside from the slithering dog, it’s fairly true to life. There’s a few different stories here, actually, but this is just one scene that’s somewhat aimless on it’s own. I’m the patron sitting alone and the man in the booth with the woman. Surge knows who the woman is.

I can’t quite explain everything that’s going on as well as I understood it as I wrote this, and I’d like to leave it open for interpretation anyway.

The descriptions and dialog were something I wanted to experiment with, mainly. It did get me going. So it’s practice, it’s venting, and it’s sort of elusive too.

Thank you everyone for reading and commenting!

The biggest problem I have here is point of view. Mostly, it's the omniscient, but you keep going into the various person's heads, where we can't be if POV is omni. Try just POV from the job applicant. Let him observe as he does here, but make the suppositions about the thoughts of the others come from his POV.

I'll have to admit, I have no idea what the dog image means. A dog slithering doesn't seem right, but others don't seem to have a problem, so go with it.

I think you are giving us a dismal picture of dejection from the job applicant. The observations are keen, but as I say above, the POV can't jump around like this.

Technical:

sparse with patrons: sparse of?

head resting in her palm and her elbow resting : two restings. "chin resting in her palm with her elbow propped on the bar"

hooks the waiter with a glare and reels him in with a nod: nice

peaks over the top: peeks over

patrons: maybe customers or diners sometime to break it up

but it’s quite attractive to the man: how do we know? so far we have no POV so we can't know whether her voice is attractive or not. I mention the POV problem above, so I won't hit every one of them.

before so that I could’ve: remove 'that'

four page menu: four-page

four egg omelet: four-egg

Sure as not to burn her: So as not to burn

And they’re all quite young together: I'm not sure what this means, but put a comma after the And

(para2)suit and tie clad manager/(further down)suit and tie clad manager: Used twice. Second time, not needed. I'm pretty sure there's got to be some hyphens here. Suit-and-tie clad manager???

Thanks, Marva! Very helpful, good points. I knew something was off about the POV, too. I honestly prefer writing in first person, but I was told I should give third person a shot. I’ll have to work on this a bit more

I don't know why the dog slithers either, really. Just wrote whatever went through my head. : )

Well, this was practice. I can assure everybody the next story will be much more polished, focused, and otherwise better. But thanks again, the feedback was definitely helpful!

I think after writing that last story I posted at EOTW, which happened to be the longest and most polished I’d written before, I felt a little drained. Creatively, I guess. I aim to give that take another go, it was fun.

Bad Day,

I actually liked this. I did get a bit lost moving from patron to patron, but the atmosphere rang true.

I'd like to know more about the conversation taking place in the booth. If you flesh this out, I'd suggest letting us in on that story.

As far as the dog -- I happened to think it was perfectly placed. With its mention right after the rejection, I assumed the dog was a reflection of the person not getting the job. To me it fit -- and made me really like the title.

Marva gave you some great points and you have it in you -- give us more!

Good luck in all things coming your way. :D

Opal

I kind of got a weird vibe from this. Maybe it was the POV or just the scene in general. 'A dog slithers' is odd, but the image is creepy and wrong, and I think that's why I got the feeling of malevolence lurking here, which was cool.

The first paragraph seemed awkward though, the rest fine.

The restaurant is well lighted and very immaculate -- ...well-lit and immaculate
--well lighted is okay, but I'd change it - might be a geographical thing
--no real need for 'very'. 'immaculate' is strong enough on its own IMO)

The blonde hostess awaits at her station by the front door -- waits
(awaits would be okay on its own, but 'at her station' makes 'waits' a better choice.

Opal - I suppose it is a bit confusing. The story was originally going to be about that conversation, but I started feeling something else and that story would’ve been much more bitter. I know a few other stories about those characters, but it’s...difficult to put in words for me. I’d need a lot a words, it’s complicated.

Bren - A vibe? Very cool. I couldn’t have hoped for more from this piece. I was feeling sort blue when I wrote it, so I suppose that comes across somehow. Neat. I really don’t know how a dog can slither, how that’d look. If it’s a metaphor, than it was from my mind where I can only imagine what it means but can’t say it. It means whatever you feel, I guess.

Thank you both very much for reading and commenting!

Bad Day. I have a rather unconventional way of looking for work, and I am never unemployed more than a week when I don't want to be. I leave this message on the employers recorder:

Hi this is Tom Allen. I read your add for help. I am the best in the field I have ever seen. If you are interested call me immediatly. If not, don't: I will be working for your competion in a week.

Believe it or not this works, I have had employers call me for a try out within the hour. Of course you have to be able to back up your bravado!

ps You might want to change the name if you try it.

The only thing I didn't like about this was the repetition of 'patron.'

Unlike Marva, I enjoyed the quick shifts from one person to the next and thought that it added a feeling of detachment. The observation of the water building under the glass suggests that the MC doesn't really care either way if he's accepted or not. It's almost as if he's going about a search simply because it's expected and not because it's necessary.

The slithering dog didn't seem out of place, as it represented the main guy. The image is also very eerie and keeps the tone of the piece.

"He’s much older than the man beside her who is much younger than she is. And they’re all quite young together"

I enjoyed that right there. Very well done.

The characters are very life-like (probably because, like you said, they're taken from life). They're basically zombies. Meaningless chatter, fake smiles and hand shakes, busy bees and dead flies in the soup -- all masking a race from here to there and back again as dishes fall and the MC stands to leave.

And a dog slithers by.

Love it.

Tom, thanks. That’s a good tip, but I’ve tried that. I’ve showed up at these places, held conversations, acted out a whole grand ego, called and called. To no avail, apparently. But it was really hilarious to me that every single manager had the same personality and response. It was like that movie Groundhog Day and I was Bill Murray. I left one place laughing to tears and I’d bet they thought I was nuts.

Surge, you nailed it! That was exactly my point. The characters are intentionally detached, and, as you said, like zombies almost. Glad you caught the water metaphor, too. I wasn’t sure if it came across that he’s sort of indifferent.

That basically describes my mood recently. Indifferent. Too many meaningless, empty, busy days and people. It has a strange effect, really. Everything seems dreamlike and you wonder if you did something outrageous if it’d make any difference. Maybe that’s it: if a dog slithered by would anyone notice?

Thank you both for reading and commenting!

Bad Day. I forgot to mention that my tactic only works when talking to the owner's of businesses. Managers tend to fear too aggressive people, they think you will replace them! Sorry I forgot that.

tom

I was hired actually, just last Thursday by a cell phone company as a salesman. We'll see how that job turns out though. For the interview, I didn't expect to get the job, so I just acted myself. I was told I'm modest, but I "look like a good guy," according to the manager. I had to show them I.D. just to prove I was eighteen, so apparently I look like a kid, too. Someday, I'm sure, that'll be a compliment.

Atta boy! Good Luck. Dad always said, "Don't eat no shit from them people, you will acquire a taste for it."

tom

I liked this, but it's all tell. It reads like a setup for a stage or screenplay. In spite of that, it oozes mood. Remarkable, actually.